Capitain Scaramouche  The Scurrilous Phantom
by TWSythar
Summary: Part Three of CS series. Joly discovers that when all the giants are sleeping, sometimes the little people can have a say in what course the world will take. Even when those little people are hypochondriacs and unlucky men. T for violence. Complete
1. The Inseparables: Joly

**A/N - Welcome to the third book or arc of the Capitain Scaramouche series! You may notice that unlike the previous two arcs, this arc is tagged as Joly/L'aigle. We try to select which characters we feel really stand out as the main characters in each Arc. Despite Grantaire being the title character in his role of Capitain Scaramouche - L'aigle and Joly shine as the central figures this time around. We recommend that new readers first read Arc One - Into the Fire we Fly and Arc Two - To Right This Wrong before reading on. It really will make much more sense if you have the background.**

**Please do review if you like our story or if you don't. We adore getting reviews, and if we're in a slow update phase there's no better way to glavanise us into updating more often. This is set in the early 1830's (we are aware of the dates spanned by each arc in case you're curious, and make an effort to keep all historical and political references accurate to that time.) and therefore some of the canon characters are still a little different to their canon selves which will appear in two year's time. **

**Good reading and we hope you enjoy! We try to update twice a week, Tuesday and Saturdays roughly, though this is subject to change depending on how well everything else in our lives is going. In this Arc we have taken the chapter titles from Dumas' Three Musketeers. We don't own either The Three Musketeers or Les Miserables.  
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Joly's sleep was heavy and dreamless, as it _ought_ to be, the painless product of deep exhaustion. He'd paced and worried and fretted until he'd driven Daniel up the _wall_ and he was just too tired to worry any more. But he had nothing really to do tomorrow morning – nothing he _could_ do about this whole mess – and he was going to sleep late for once this week, just pull up the covers and not come out until the sun was going down again.

Then someone knocked at the door. No, _hammered_ on the door, frantically, in a way that made him think perhaps there was a fire next door.

_Is it Grantaire? If it's Grantaire I suppose I can understand but dieu I don't want this to become a habit. Hnnnnnn… _Joly tried to untangle himself from his sheets and ended up on the floor before forcing himself toward the door instead. It was times like these that he wished Daniel were the lighter sleeper between them. Even if there _were_ a fire he wasn't sure he could bring himself to care at the moment.

It was not a fire. It was one of the clown triplets, looking painfully out of place and with a look that just as painfully meant trouble. "Harlequin!" he gasped. "Scaramouche! You have to come!"

Maurice stood blinking stupidly, trying to make his mouth and brain work. "…wha'?" Scaramouche. What? Scaramouche was Grantaire. He knew this much. The boy before him was associated with Scaramouche. The theater. What was he doing _here_?

"Scaramouche…they've got him!"

"_What?_" Something still wasn't clicking. Scaramouche was Grantaire and they had Scaramouche so whoever they was had Grantaire and…

The boy collapsed against the doorframe before Joly could even move to catch him. "…arrested…"

It clicked. "Oh _dieu_."

"Grantaire, if that's you again…" Daniel had been woken as well and was trying to make his way through the darkened room.

"Grantaire's been arrested," Maurice told him numbly, turning.

"…he's…_what?_"

"I don't know," he said. His brain still wasn't working. "I don't know. Can you put some coffee on or something? I'll get…" He couldn't remember the triplets' names even if he could have told them apart. "I'll get him to explain when he's caught his breath…" Daniel, faster on the uptake than he, hustled them both out of the doorway and onto the couch before going to make the coffee. Dieu. Grantaire arrested. Joly couldn't even begin to think about what was going on.

"Some strange homme, seemed to know each other," the boy was saying. His eyes darted around the room as if he could feel it caging him in. "Didn't make a fight at all, seemed to walk straight into it and have the cuffs put on him."

Then the coffee was being put into his hands and he drank most of it, too quickly. His tongue was burnt probably irreparably but he still couldn't bring himself to care…Joly could hear the blood whizzing through his head and suddenly things were making sense again. "Dieu. I bet it was Pilon, or whatever his real name is. He just let him do it?"

The pierrot shuddered a little. "Oui…just stood there. Homme punched him a couple times, too." Daniel winced and Maurice gave a groan. He'd already been injured before. Badly. Dieu knew what could be wrong _now_.

Their friend was looking very uncomfortable, expectable given his unfamiliarity with normal housing. "I have to get back. Papa Punchinello's expecting me back," he said edgily.

"Thank you for telling us," Joly nodded. He thought he could feel his blood slosh from chin to crown and back again and felt another dizzy rush.

"Thought I should..." the pierrot said, edging toward the door. "If anyone can help him, it's you I guess." And then he was gone. Thank you for the vote of confidence. Joly was already feeling very very confident…but it never hurt to have someone else be confident in him too.

Daniel groaned. "Dear _dieu_, what was he thinking?"

Nobody could answer that question. Except Grantaire. And they couldn't exactly ask him – well not at the _moment_ they couldn't… "You realize what we're going to have to do, right?" he sighed.

Daniel poured himself more coffee and sighed as well. "….yeah."

Maurice waited until he was done and then took another cup of coffee (he saw no reason not to). "So do we wait til the morning to get Feuilly?"

"Hell no," Daniel said, "why should he sleep when we aren't going to?"

He laughed. "Good point. Very good point."

Daniel took a drink of his coffee, which seemed to do him good. Maurice knew it was doing _him_ good. "…so shall we visit or send for him?"

Hm. Given the late hour and the possibility of disturbing neighbors and that he just felt _awkward_ just popping in on someone he knew as little as Feuilly… "Send for him, I suppose." There went Daniel off to send for Feuilly and here he was sitting alone drinking coffee. And planning. Grantaire must be in custody somewhere. They would certainly keep him in La Force as he must be an important prisoner. Well of _course_ he was important – but – not really in ways the police would find important.

"If he accepts he should be here soon," Daniel said, breaking into the draining of the dregs of the who-knew-how-many-th cup of coffee. He could feel his friend's look burning a hole in the bottom of the cup.

"…I _am_ leaving some for you and him," Joly pointed out. As he poured himself another, because he really _did_ need it, think of what _time_ it was and all he had to get _done_ and it was all very important.

"Glad to hear it," Daniel said without sounding as if he were really very convinced, and sat down next to him. "You all right?"

He nodded. "Just fine. Really."

"Sure?" Daniel got his own coffee from the table and looked at him worriedly over its rim. "Know you must be a bit worried."

"…I am. A bit," he confessed, realizing on slight reflection that maybe a little bit, somewhere, he _was_. He just couldn't think about that. At all. No worrying. Just focus. Another half cup of coffee just in case.

"…yeah…" Daniel frowned. "Wonder what made him go do something that damn stupid."

"Mad at the world?" Second half cup gone. Refill. More worried hole-burning looks from Daniel's direction.

"Grantaire? Huh. Never took him for the type," Daniel said.

"He was certainly mad at Lucien and Dominic," Maurice said in what _he_ felt was a very sensible manner.

"Well, yeah…but _that_ mad?"

"I don't know." Quarter of the cup in one swallow, and his eyes possibly weren't tracking correctly but he didn't quite mind because the world was slowing down and _anything_ was possible now. "Ask him yourself when you find him."

And there was a knock at the door. Unless it was the police…it must be Feuilly.


	2. The Inseparables: L'aigle

Oh dear. Oh dear _dieu_. Daniel knew that he wasn't the smartest or really even the kindest of men. He actually didn't think he was anything particularly special. And as he sat on the sofa trying to _think_ why Grantaire - their ... dieu dammit, Daniel you can't even _think_ of him as a friend, can you? And that was the problem. That was his Big Horrible Problem as he sat on the sofa and thought about sleep and coffee and how he'd already _spilled_ some and about awkward boys out of place when they weren't in their theatre and fanmakers and how much he wanted to go back to bed.

Daniel L'aigle's Big Problem was that he was, deep down, really a Horrible Person. Because despite being worried - oh chou, really I am worried about your Scaramouche, of _course_ I am, and it's just _terrible_ and I'd gladly go and beat up anyone you need me to - despite that, he ... couldn't help sitting there on, as already stated, the sofa and wishing that the little pierrot had not come to _them_. After all, surely Grantaire had other not-quite-friends-but-we-owe-him-so-we'll-help people... other people who didn't need to sleep and protect their Joli's from the Bull-like spies of the world. Other people who weren't currently wishing their world could return to a state where they could lie in their beds and sleep and not be up at horrible hours of the morning feeling cold and wondering... what _is_ that stain on the sofa and how _can_ I clean it before Maurice sees it?

The whole situation made his head spin. Why would Grantaire - _Grantaire_, the cocky, sodden master of so much wit that it doesn't seem to come out quite right and keeps getting stuck in his wineglass... the unshaven fellow who gladly throws a punch even though he always seems to miss, and argues with _Enjolras_... I mean, dieu. A cynic, oui? He's a _cynic_, they're not meant to care about things like this and go about getting angry with people and getting _arrested_. Dieu dammit, when this was all over and god-willing they were still alive and he would have a few more completely metaphorical grey hairs and things On His List... he was going to have to _talk_ to Grantaire about what it meant to be a cynic and all that in entailed. Apparently, Grantaire needed lessons.

The knock heralding what was _hopefully_ Feuilly came as a welcome relief from his thoughts, and he hurried to get it, tripping over the table on the way. He'd once kept count of the number of times he'd tripped over that table, but had decided to stop when his count reached 57 and the table had earned a large chip from the corner.

Feuilly didn't bother waiting to be invited in, simply stepping to one side and around Daniel as he rubbed at his shin and eying them both with a mixture of curiosity, impatience and worry. "What's going on?"

"Trouble." Daniel replied, returning to the sofa and sitting back down. "I'm getting used to it." Dieu, next thing you know Enjolras will be asking us to let him use our appartment for the headquarters of the next Revolution. Oh, oui - Enjolras, no problem. Take a place in the line after the anarchist and between the two men coming to see us about illegal boxing rings...

Maurice helpfully passed Feuilly a cup of coffee. "Grantaire's been arrested."

"_Damn_." Feuilly accepted it, eyebrows shooting up into the hairline he actually _had_, which was nice for some. _Other_ people didn't _have_ hairlines and just looked like a pixie had ploughed across their forehead several times - and he thought perhaps he _needed_ some coffee, unlike his Joli who had already had too much.

"Probably by Pilon." He gave a quick shake of his head, trying to clear the tangles of thoughts into something more helpful. Focus on the important things, L'aigle. Important like Grantaire and him being hurt and losing all his friends and so on. Important, unlike your lack of hair which - really, cher, shouldn't you be over that by now? "Sounds like it got rough."

Feuilly wasted no time, something he admired about the man. "I presume I'm here because you're intending to do something about it?" Joli gave him a little, firm nod and Feuilly took the coffee cup from him. "Whatever it is, I'm in."

Thank the bon dieu we don't have to do this alone. Daniel hunched his shoulders a little, and glanced at Maurice. For what, cher? For guidance, of course. You have your cher Scaramouche, I have you. "What _is_ it, Joli?"

"We're going to have to get him out." Maurice finished more coffee with an eerie sort of calm, and Daniel felt himself shiver.

"...all... right. How?"

"I'm not sure. Something different than last time, obviously."

"You know they'll be expecting _something_." He knew that there was this side to his Joli, of course. He'd seen him Handle Things before, really he's awfully smart. People didn't always see it because well - his Joli was clever about things like illnesses and other people were bloody idiots - to be frank and not wanting to offend anyone and all... Somehow even Daniel hadn't quite expected his Joli's powers to extend to breaking someone out of prison.

"Will they?" Feuilly seemed to be taking Maurice seriously, something for which Daniel felt both grateful and pleased. The small fanmaker looked thoughtful, as though he were giving proper weight to Joli's suggestions. "They seem to have mostly forgotten about you... "

Wait... what? Daniel wasn't sure whether he'd missed something due to still being half asleep - and if finding out a firend-like-person-you-don't-actually-like-that-much-and-are-afraid-it's-because-your-jealous-of-them is in prison isn't enough to wake one up, then what was? - but there seemed to be a weight to the 'you' Feuilly had just directed at his Joli - who was staring. In fact Daniel was _also_ staring, which was rude, but _really..._ No one was suppose to know who Harlequin was, were they?

"Oh. I...talked to Grantaire about that already." Feuilly said, rather off-handedly as if he couldn't really see why _how_ he knew what he knew mattered. "It wasn't too hard to figure out after he came around looking for the real culprit."

"Oh. Oh, alright." Joli said slowly.

Yes. Alright. "...right." And Feuilly _was_ right, wasn't he? No one seemed to even recall that Harlequin had even _been_ there, and he'd been the one to stay that whole hellish week with them at the school... "...they _do_ seem to have forgotten you exist, cher."

Maurice didn't appear to be too concerned by this. "That's true. I wonder why?"

"I don't think anybody really saw you during the break," Feuilly was once again taking Maurice Seriously, and Daniel began to think he could grow to Rather Like Him. "and then you never did show up again."

"Grantaire's personality was certainly enough to distract from anything else, too." Wasn't Grantaire's personality _always_ enough to distract from... and shouldn't he really stop thinking like this at _least_ until the man was out of prison?

Maurice snapped his fingers briskly and poured himself - cher... no, not _more_ coffee... "Yes. True."

"...so..." Daniel eyed the pot, which was nearly empty, and Feuilly - who was looking at his Joli as if he'd sprouted wings and started proclaiming Charles X as God and Master. "if they don't remember you then they certainly don't remember me." Should he make more coffee?

"Especially if you have a wig on." Joli said, rather apologetically.

He grinned back, rubbing his head. "...yeah... that helps."

Feuilly was - oddly enough, continuing to act as though they were all making perfect sense and not planning to spring a man from a heavily guarded prison. Dieu. Were they all mad, then? Did knowing Grantaire as Scaramouche do this to a person? Were Dominic and Lucien next? "We're probably not going to get it with one man, though. I'm sure he'll be heavily guarded."

"What do you think they'll do with him? I mean - if we don't get him out?" As he said the words, something dropped at the bottom of his stomach and perhaps things got a little more serious.

"I don't know." Joli said in a cold, stern sort of voice that made his stomach drop a bit more and suddenly he was imagining a List - except not for his Joli but for a rather homely drunken man called Grantaire. "Probably won't be good for him."

"Can't imagine it will." Daniel said, and with that he made a place in his heart for the Man Named Grantaire and all his troubles and masks and annoyances and Faces Called Scaramouche and even the bit of him that Joli looked up to. All right, mon ami... friends. "...we need a plan, Joli."

Maurice seemed to be missing his coffee already. "I'm _working_ on one. There's a diagram of the prison but it's at his place."

"He's got a diagram of a _prison_?" Who had diagrams of prisons lying about their appartments?

"Don't ask me why."

Anotehr look at the empty coffee pot, and Daniel sighed, gave in, and hopped around the table on his way out to the kitchen. Plans of prisons, masks lying about the place - Dieu... one would almost suspect Grantaire of being a governmental spy if it weren't so ridiculous... besides, he berated himself sternly - government spies do _not_ break people _out_ of prison. That would defeat the purpose. He returned to the living room in time to hear Feuilly asking something.

" ...do you think he remembered to lock his door?"

"He didn't." he placed the coffee on the table and shot Maurice a worried Please Don't Drink Much More Cher look. "I was still on my way out when he left. Just pulled the door to."

Maurice was quite possibly ignoring his significant looks. Possibly. "All right. I think I remember where it is...they're probably not watching his place."

And that was true. Of course. It was his Joli, after all. "Probably don't know where he lives unless he told them." Another thought struck him, hard like a punch to the gut. "...do you think Pilon asked him about us? _He_ probably remembers Grantaire having a few with him." Oh dieu, oh dear dieu... oh dieu this was not good. This was bad. Horrible. Terrible bad. What if the soldiers were already on their way here? Feuilly shot him an odd look, and Maurice sighed.

"Augh...we were there when he caught Pilon...but do you think he remembers us? We were pretty far back."

"Pretty sure we're why he didn't attack GrandR straight off..." Grantaire... friends or no... please. Don't tell him about my Joli. I'll do anything you like after this, I'll buy you every bottle of wine you want, you can flirt with my girls... anything. Just don't tell him.

"I don't know...we'll think of something when I get back." And with that, Joli got up and put on only one jacket and barely any wraps - and hurried outside into the night. Daniel listened for a long time, just in case... but try as he might he couldn't hear anything like an official footstep outside. Maybe - and really he _did_ hope so - maybe they were safe.


	3. The Inseparables: Feuilly

There was no denying that this night was shaping up to be extremely odd. Grantaire getting himself arrested…messages in the middle of the night…Joly suddenly acting like Enjolras and the Archangel Michael put together (not that there was all that much difference between the two, was there?). Feuilly was confused to say the least and…to say a little more…perhaps a bit excited. This was as good a way as any to repay Grantaire for his last Scaramouche escapade. If the government can take an eye for an eye, a man ought at least to give freedom for freedom.

He swirled the coffee in his cup absently, watching small eddies splash up onto the ceramic. Perhaps L'Aigle could explain at least a _little _of the oddness. "Where did that _come_ from?" he asked, looking up.

"…what?" L'Aigle looked startled, as if he really hadn't been paying attention. Half his mind not even in the room, and all that.

"He's really not acting like himself." Occasionally people made the comment that perhaps Feuilly was a bit _blunt_ for his own good and that he ought to learn tact. He couldn't see that tact ever did much but get in the way of honest discussion.

L'Aigle just shrugged. "He gets a bit…intense…when he's had coffee."

Intense. That was one word for it. Feuilly had never particularly known Joly, but the general image hadn't been one compatible with sudden changes of plans or taking charge of _anything_. It had been more of the man who kept windows shut obsessively and wore scarves indoors if they were open. Then again, he _had_ been Harlequin; that had to count for something. "…all right."

"Mmm," L'Aigle said, clearly seeing some part of Joly that he didn't. "So…why are you here, Feuilly?"

_Why are you here?_ That is a question for the ages. The sort of thing one discusses with Combeferre if one is sure he's done with both his and Enjolras' school work, over nearly-burned-down candles and wine you can't afford on your own. But if you mean why am I here, in a completely strange apartment, suddenly conspiring to break a man out of prison…still a question for the ages, I'm afraid. "Lots of reasons," he offered as compromise since, dammit, he wasn't quite sure himself. "See justice done. Help repay him for getting _us_ out. Anyway, I already offered to help him out if he ever meant to put Scaramouche's mask on again." His face twitched a very little at the memory – unusual show of emotion, Alexandre, and a rather unusual amount of talking for you, are you sure perhaps there isn't something in the coffee rather than only in the air? "He wanted to assign me a name, actually…"

L'Aigle chuckled. "Yeah, he did that to me too." Feuilly smiled a little. _Robin Hood_…really…

Joly announced his return by slapping a roll of papers down on the table in front of them and dropping a sack on the floor beside it before going in search of his coffee cup. Feuilly still couldn't decide if Joly drinking quite so much coffee was a good thing or not. L'Aigle seemed to think it was most definitely _not_. "Any trouble?" he asked his twin worriedly.

"Perfectly clear," Joly said, shaking his head and nudging L'Aigle over so he could have a seat as well. L'Aigle simply got up and went to fetch something or other, casting worried looks back as he did so.

Feuilly was already unrolling the papers and looking them over. Yes, they were plans of the prisons and of the Prefecture. Why Grantaire would have such things simply sitting in his apartment where anybody might find them – well, why Grantaire would have them at _all_ - was beyond him. "What's in the bag?" he asked as he sorted them out and marveled at the detail.

Joly drew forth an assortment of odd masks and hats, some of which were well recognizable as belonging to Scaramouche and Harlequin. "You know, just in case…" Joly said with a slight grin. L'Aigle was returning with a wrap and a fresh pot of coffee, and once he had placed the coffee on the table and the wrap firmly around Joly's shoulders, he took one of the masks that Feuilly didn't recognize. "…he _really_ shouldn't have kept them at his home," he said, looking at it and grinning a little as well.

"Well now he isn't. They're here," Joly said sensibly, and took another drink of coffee.

Feuilly stared down at the rows of cells in thought. "Where do you think they put him?"

L'Aigle shrugged. "…where would _he_ say they'd put him?"

"Hm…" Joly said, leaning over to look. "Probably in one of the single cells along the front, where they had Enjolras and Combeferre…somewhere they can keep an eye on him." He joined Feuilly in staring, eyes crossing and uncrossing in thought until he gave up and went back to his coffee.

"I see what you mean," L'Aigle said, taking a glance over. "So…if he's there, how do we get to him? And more importantly, how do we get him out?"

That was probably _the_ question at the moment. It was really all a matter of strategy now. There were really two ways to get him out of the cell: _with_ anyone knowing and _without_ anyone knowing… "Well, is there any legitimate reason for _anyone_ to get him out?" he asked.

"Except for 'Pilon'?" L'Aigle added. "And let's face it, we're probably not going to be able to get the drop on him _twice_..."

"No..." Joly sighed. "Hm, do you think the internal communication is all that good?"

L'Aigle thought for a moment. "...seems to flow through the changing of the guards, wouldn't you say, Alexandre?"

It took about half a second for Feuilly to realize that the other man was talking to _him_. He vaguely remembered adding his Christian name in introducing himself at some point, not intending to ever really have it used – really, _no_ one used it. While his first instinct was skittishness, he supposed that men undertaking such a venture really had no reason to pretend they were still on formal terms. It was indeed odd that the lieutenants of the Society hadn't all gotten past that stage yet. Alexandre shook it off and tried to recall what he had been asked. "Yeah, I think so. They had to get all their information off each other."

"They change…how often?" Joly had returned to staring at the map. Feuilly reflected that he wasn't quite sure if he even _knew_ their particular names. He was bound to pick it up sooner or later.

"Every…hour? Two hours?" he replied, looking to L'Aigle for confirmation. "Maybe it was longer."

"Every two and a half hours, on the hour from 12 and cycling through half hours as it went," he said specifically.

"Your watch hadn't broken yet?" Joly said briskly.

"No."

"All right then." Joly made some note on the corner of the map. "If we go in at the beginning of the watch and take the guard out, we have two hours maybe before anyone notices."

"Right. They're not too heavily armed, mostly just with nightsticks further into the prison."

"We only ran into the one outside your cell, didn't see any in the single-cell hallway...hm...could have been around the corner."

Alexandre sat forward and listened to the other two finish each other's thoughts and discuss the workings of the prison in such quick tones they almost seemed to not _need_ words at all. It was unsettling, how well they seemed to know each other.

"We might have to do some distracting," Joly said thoughtfully.

"I could do that," L'Aigle said. "I'm bound to be a distraction anyway, might as well make use of it." Feuilly honestly couldn't tell if that was more of a grin or a grimace on his face, but he nodded along. L'Aigle folded his arms. "Right. When do we do this, Joli?"

"As soon as possible, ideally," Joly said around his coffee. "Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow," L'Aigle said, looking to Feuilly for confirmation.

"Tomorrow," he nodded.

Joly threw the rest of his coffee back and collected the plans from the table in one sweep. "Welcome to stay here tonight if you want, Alexandre. It's not a bother."

"No, that's perfectly fine," he said, getting up. L'Aigle – was it Dominic? It was possibly Dominic – no, Bahorel was a Dominic – looked a little bit relieved and Feuilly guessed that he had spent too much time recently dealing with everything else to quite want to have to deal with one more person on the couch. "I'll see you both tomorrow, then."

The walk home was unusually short, probably because it had to hold so many more thoughts than usual. There was almost too much to process. Grantaire as Scaramouche, Scaramouche revealed as Grantaire, Grantaire thrown into prison for no apparent reason, an almost random group of his friends joined together to get him out…Feuilly was determined to make sense of it all.

Somehow he had the feeling that none of them were going to sleep very well that night.


	4. I Have Promised You The Truth

**A/N: Apologies for the several typos in the last chapter. As we are one chapter away from finishing this Arc, I have decided to continue with the twice weekly publishing schedule. Enjoy! Thank you to our new reviewers, you're wonderful! :D**

The back room of the Café Musain was emptier than usual. In one corner sat Enjolras and Combeferre, exchanging words and increasingly frosty looks. Bahorel and Courfeyrac were the only other men there, Courfeyrac making obvious efforts to lift Bahorel's spirits. It was into this den that Maurice Joly sidled, followed closely by Daniel L'Aigle. He felt as if he were going to fight a duel, and had made Daniel his second. But for reasons best consigned to the bottom of the empty coffee-pot at home…he was confident.

"I've got news," he said, breaking the threads of conversation stretched across the room.

"_Important_ news, Joly?" Combeferre said dismissively, barely turning from making the middle of his point to Enjolras. "Or a new outbreak of the plague?"

"Oh, important news," he said. Let Combeferre sneer…in a few minutes he was going to be speechless. For once.

"Well? Spit it out," Dominic growled.

"I'm all ears, Joly," Combeferre said over the top of his glasses.

"You've all seen in the papers that they're going to have a member of the revolution hung, oui?" He could feel Daniel shifting beside him and wanted to say something to him along the lines of "Don't _worry_" or "Just watch, this is going to be _excellent_."

"We were just discussing that," Combeferre said, turning to Enjolras with a look that said they had actually been discussing something entirely different. "I thought it might have been one of the leaders of the other factions."

"Oh – yes, it could have been," Enjolras said, moving quickly to regain his place on top of things.

"That's _hardly_ news," Bahorel interjected, looking surly.

"But the fact that it's Scaramouche is," Joly said. At this revelation, Bahorel shut up very quickly, Courfeyrac looked as if he'd just swallowed something slimy, and Enjolras and Combeferre simply stared aghast. He could feel his tone of voice automatically swerving from serious to reproving – _reproving_? As though he really _were_ as in control as he felt.

"…what _for_?" Enjolras said, shoving a few of Combeferre's papers out of the way so he could move closer.

"Well, for breaking us out of the Prefecture." He pulled out a chair next to Dominic, who let him take it without comment.

"Dear _Dieu_…" Combeferre pushed his glasses up and rescued his papers without appearing to think about what he was doing. "...how did they find him? Do they know who he - do _we_ know who he is? ...How do _you_ know about this, Joly?"

"Scaramouche…_executed_…" Lucien said hoarsely.

"Well, not _yet._ –and I don't know how they found him, nor if they know who he is," Maurice said, trying not to betray anything. Was this how Grantaire…Perceval…Scaramouche…had felt? "I only know what information I get from his confederate M. Harlequin.

Combeferre seemed to be completely lost for words – to be honest, it was only the gravity of the situation that kept Joly from smirking outright. How does it feel to be the one who's got it all wrong? "…Harlequin?" he questioned, taken aback.

"The _other_ man who got us out of prison," Daniel rumbled generously.

"Ah, right," Enjolras nodded, joined tentatively by Combeferre. _Thrilled_, simply thrilled to know that he had such heretofore untapped powers of invisibility…really now amis, I spent a _week_ watching over you and yelling at you to stay out of the stairwells and you still forgot I existed? Such gratitude. He ought to join them in nodding along.

"He was kind enough to keep me informed about your whereabouts when you lot were being held after the break," Joly explained.

"...so he came to tell you to let us know that M. Scaramouche is in prison?" Combeferre said slowly, still trying to sort out what had somehow happened without his being there.

"Yes, and scheduled to be hung if nothing should get in the government's way," he said seriously. Aw now Jolllly, you're being too _serious_ for your own good today, aren't you? Was the coffee just too bitter? They'll forget you're supposed to be the cheerful one. Go on, laugh. "Not even a trial for poor Scaramouche."

The morbid chuckle flew over Enjolras' angelic head. "Such is the nature of this tyranny under which we live."

"I wonder if there is anything we can do for him," Combeferre said thoughtfully. Maurice felt something at his elbow and turned to see Daniel pushing a cup of coffee in front of him with a look that said he had damn well _better_ not end up regretting this.

"Besides the obvious?" he said, after he had nodded to his second gratefully and taken a few sips.

"…the obvious?" Combeferre asked with one eyebrow raised. "And what _is_ the obvious, Joly?"

"What, it isn't…" Sorry, ami, I just can't help myself on this one. "Obvious?"

Combeferre blinked a few times before appearing to simply let it go, for his own precious sanity. "No…if it were obvious, I would be following you."

"Ah well, then." He shrugged and took another casual drink of the coffee as if to say, If _you_ can't figure it out, then there's really no use in even trying to explain it, is there? Joly had the vague feeling that he could _possibly_ be enjoying himself just a _little_ overmuch, but the humming in his ears whispered that there was absolutely nothing wrong with _that_.

Out of the corners of his eyes, he could see Dominic and Lucien looking uncomfortable and contrite, as well as slight amusement (he was fairly sure only he could see it) in Daniel's eyes. By contrast, Enjolras was certainly _not_ amused. "Well, what is it?"

"...wonder if th' one who picked him up was that homme who turned us in?" Daniel drawled a bit, in just such a way that Maurice didn't know if it was an act or not. "Th' one 'we' thought was Grantaire?"

"No one thought it was Grantaire," Enjolras said testily.

"...Really? I thought that was why you told him to leave our meetings," Combeferre said, turning to him in what looked like relief and gratitude for the distraction.

"That was only because he's a drunkard, and a troublemaker, and a distraction, and a thousand other useless things," Enjolras explained, looking annoyed.

Combeferre sighed. "You've been _talking_ to him again."

"And if I have?" Enjolras said with a raised eyebrow. Courfeyrac was red, and Bahorel just looked angry.

"...Enjolras..." Combeferre said reprovingly, "You do need to start leaving the poor homme alone." Daniel looked about as worried by this turn of conversation as Maurice felt. He had been _far_ more comfortable talking about Scaramouche than about his far less well-liked alter-ego – not to mention that leaving Enjolras in charge of this conversation was possibly the worst possible way for it to go.

"I'm not doing anything!" Enjolras protested. "What has he done to merit my respect?" At this, Joly and Courfeyrac each hastily turned to their own coffees (Courfeyrac with a less-than-subtle explosive noise) while Daniel and Bahorel continued to simmer.

Combeferre remained calmly focused on Enjolras, seeming not to notice his friends' reactions. "How badly did it go this time?" he asked, with the merest hint of Knowing Better Than You.

"For your information, it went very well," Enjolras said shortly. "We ended in agreeing that as things currently stand, the only way that we could get along would be for him to remove himself from the earth entirely."

_Oh dieu._ That explained so much. Too much. _Far_ too much. Maurice choked on the coffee still in his throat, feeling as if the bottom had just dropped out of his stomach.

"…_Augustin_!" Combeferre yelped.

"_What_?" Enjolras snapped back. "What have I done _this_ time to offend you?"

"You told him to kill himself, Enjolras," Combeferre said quietly. To kill himself, yes, to go right ahead and walk into Pilon's waiting arms. Joly could feel the bottom dropping out of his confidence, too, even under the buzz from the coffee. The last issue with Enjolras had been quite bad enough, and now _this_…

"I did _not_," Enjolras protested. Maurice didn't see how Enjolras could honestly not see this. Obviously Combeferre didn't either.

"...To tell someone that you will only be happy if they remove themselves from the _earth_, is to tell them to _die_. This being the only logical and possible way to _do_ so," he said slowly. Enjolras, however, stared ahead in resolute silence. Combeferre sighed. "Has anyone _seen_ Grantaire since? Dieu _only_ knows what he's gone and done." Le Bon Dieu plus four very nervous and _extremely_ angry men, Joly thought with a touch of irony he hadn't noticed in himself before.

"Look, Combeferre, I would think that Grantaire's present whereabouts are not nearly as important as what we might do about M. Scaramouche," Enjolras said in the irritable tone he always used when he knew Combeferre was right, but didn't want to admit it

"…possibly," Combeferre said in the long-suffering tone he always used when he had no intention of letting the matter drop in the long term.

"So, what are you planning to do about it?" Maurice interjected hurriedly, while he had the chance.

"Yes, Augustin, what are we planning to do about it?" Combeferre said testily, in a way that made Joly not quite sure which one of them he was mad at. Given the way he kept using Enjolras' Christian name, though, it _probably_ wasn't Maurice.

"Why don't _you_ come up with a plan, since you know everything?" Enjolras snapped.

"... what I don't know right now is what to say to you," he said deliberately. "I'll see you later Maurice, L'aigle, Lucien... Dominic." Combeferre proceeded to gather up his papers in one sweep before stalking out of the room without making any goodbye to the leader. Enjolras stared after him with something vaguely approaching disbelief.

"I think I need to be getting somewhere... else," Courfeyrac said, breaking the silence. "Coming, amigo?"

"Yeah, may's well," Bahorel agreed with a slow nod. Maurice noticed suddenly how unusually haunted he looked.

"Come on, we'll go poke fun at the law students," Courfeyrac said, straining to grin; Daniel shot them both a look of disapproval.

"I'm going to find Combeferre," Enjolras said shortly, more by way of excuse than anything, and walked out – and with him went their best, probably only hope for getting any help for Grantaire. Joly drank the rest of the coffee quickly, to stop himself from wondering if this meeting could have _possibly_ gone any worse than it had…


	5. Whom I Love and Defend

**A/N: Voila. A new chapter. And a shout out to storytellers and her fascinating Worth of a Man - one of my favorite Les Miserables stories currently being updated. Do give it a read if you haven't already. :) TW has done the cover illustration for this! Under harlequin-seamstress on DevArt.**

He did not know why they had come to the cafe, _really_. After all, it was Joly who had dragged him out of bed in the morning - suspiciously early for his usual sleeping habits, and insisted that they dress, drink coffee and then make their way to the cafe to - as he had said in what could only be called unhealthily energetic tones for what couldn't be much later than possibly ten o'clock - _see what we can see!_

What did they see? They saw two men who professed to be the friends of the drunkard in question sitting together and sulking over something so ridiculously unimportant that _he_ couldn't remember what it was anymore. They saw Enjolras and Combeferre arguing over some subject or other in the cool collected way of Men Who Do Not Want To Appear To Be Arguing. They saw Combeferre look down his nose at Maurice - that's _my_ Maurice, thank you oh _so_ very much, M. I Know Absolutely Everything. Kindly look down your dam' nose at someone else's Maurice. They saw something like guilt on two face, something like shock on two others. He heard - he could not speak for his Joli there, because really he half hoped he was dreaming about what he had heard. Because really... _really_... Enjolras had not honestly told Grantaire to kill himself. He couldn't have. That could not be the reason their - and he could think it now, he _really_ could - their **friend** was arrested and facing execution.

It couldn't.

He watched, again, not sure he wasn't dreaming something more fantastical than rabbits and green and absinthe out of a bad bit of cheese and a poor night's sleep, as Combeferre left in a temper, actually walking away from their leader and leaving him to follow only moment later. And then they were alone. He turned questioning eyes on Maurice, wondering. Did you expect this, Joli? Were we here to try to pick their brains... maybe even get some help? Or were we here because you figured out somehow - god knows how, but really you _are_ the smart one here even if Combeferre's nose is far too long for him to see it - that Enjolras had something... dieu. He had something to do with it all and I'm _following_ Enjolras, chou. I am. Why?

"So... Scaramouche." It was Courfeyrac, a little less rigid and uncomfortable now that the bright glorious brilliance that was Enjolras' presence had left them. Oh, pardon, ami. Do we _care_ now about our friend Grantaire and whether or not perhaps certain brilliant men have been making him feel less than welcome on the face of this planet? Does that actually matter on the grand scheme of things say as compared as to whether socks are fashionable?

Maurice had a tiny bite in his voice that Daniel doubted they would notice. "Ah yes. The man you had such a problem with." He finished his coffee then, but Daniel really didn't think he should have any more just yet. Ami, you're practically living on it. I know it helps, but_..._

Bahorel appeared to have sensed some sort of accusation in Joly's words, for he gave a half-hearted snort and cocked a half-hearted eyebrow and muttered, 'Oh come on, ami," without, obviously thinking about the fact that if he'd had no reason to feel guilty, there would have been no cause to protest.

Daniel L'Aigle was becoming angry. He mildly rubbed his head and mildly said "...certainly looked like it." And he stood there beside Maurice's chair with his arms folded and a frown on his face and wondered - why can't you tell that we are both angry? Are we damned invisible? Maurice had a slow temper and one that could be a bit hard to spot if you weren't ready for a lot of very subtle sarcasm. Of course with coffee it appeared to be a lot less subtle and a lot more sarcastic. Which might, perhaps, explain why even Dominic Bahorel had finally noted that Maurice Joly was Not Pleased.

Oui.

Surprise.

Let's make it a National Day an' all, just about the most shocking thing to happen in all '30.

"Well... he...um..." Courfeyrac had gone a shade of red which clashed with his clothes. Daniel thought about pointing this out to him, but bit his tongue and glanced at Maurice, who was raising a pointed eyebrow at Courfeyrac. This, of course, was even _more_ of a surprise. Heavens, mes amis, not only can Joli Joly become upset, but he can also get angry... and to top that all off, you will never believe it, but he can _actually_ express his _anger!_

Courfeyrac gaped a little for a moment, and then said rather weakly, "...he lied to us. Both of us."

"You were there." Bahorel added, looking less unnerved and more confused.

"Hell," Daniel had been about to point out that they were so _very_ kind for remembering he'd been there, _really_. Amis, the way you were going on, I really thought you'd mistaken us for part of the furniture. That happens a lot, really it does, and b'sides, R's furniture isn't up to much so we really should be insulted by that. However, Courfeyrac obviously thought that neither of the previous statements had not quite filled the air of the cafe with enough dripping irony, and was adding to it. They'd all drown soon in irony, Daniel thought rather grimly. And wouldn't _that_ be amusing? "He lied to you too, when it comes down to it."

Maurice twisted a little in his chair to direct a gaze to Daniel which said, _yes, I'm pretty sure we just heard them right. Shall I illustrate their idiocy for them?_

Cher, if you would. He nodded back. Please, cher. I'm about fed up with this whole blasted thing.

"Really?" Maurice turned back, looked over both Bahorel and Courfeyrac with a sneer that was a lot less subtle than it would normally be. Daniel blamed the coffee, and blessed the coffee at the same time. "You never figured it out?"

Courfeyrac blinked at him and sat up a little. "Figured... out... what?"

Oh dear me. Looks like we're not sufficiently concerned for our friend facing the death penalty, are we, de Courfeyrac? Still got enough energy left over to be annoyed with poor little Joli for not being clear enough about what he means. Dear dear dear. Daniel felt his fists clenching again and took a deep breath. He was burning lower and lower and he didn't like losing his temper.

"Oh, well, if you can't figure it out..." Maurice said in a drawl that would honestly have made Grantaire proud. Before he got hung, of course. There was that gallows shadow over everything now.

Bahorel snarled. "Oh for the love of god, you're all playing games with us."

Daniel blinked very fast, then. Saw Grantaire looking like he'd lost everything in the world as his friends walked out on him. Saw Capitain Scaramouche laying into Pilon as though his own skin didn't matter worth a damn and then just walking off with his broken ribs, bruises and patches and all. Saw a noose hanging in a breeze. Saw a mask. Saw a lot of things and swallowed hard and said in a voice so cold that he couldn't even recognise it as his own, "You know what, Bahorel? I don't know about you, but _I_ don't think Grantaire being sentenced to _death_ is much of a _game_."

There was a dead sort of silence then. The kind Daniel had always mentally associated with funerals and really long boring sermons in a church with too-hard pews. Both their friends... something Daniel was currently using as a very loose descriptive term, were staring in wide-eyed shock as though Daniel had stepped onto a chair and declared himself Louis Seize. Maurice was smirking just a little, obviously amused.

Very funny. Oui, good old L'Aigle can string more than two or three words together in a row. Here, let me show you a few more. He felt like drawling. Hell, now that Grantaire was in prison, he felt like they should all take up the banners of cynicism and irony just until the damn annoying stupid idiotic drunk was back where he belonged among them and out of whatever cold cell he was currently in. So, for perhaps the first time in recent history, Daniel Lesgle drawled. "But don't let's anyone actually _worry_ about him. No... never mind_ worrying_ about him. Or maybe worrying about the fact that having his_ friends..." _look cher, there's that word again. Do you think I ought to explain what it means? I don't think they're familiar with the term. "... desert him probably was what caused him to jus' walk up to an officer and get arrested. No. Let's just go on about how he lied to us while saving us from prison."

Bahorel was the first to lower his gaze, a slight flush rising on his cheeks. Courfeyrac, however, stared with wide eyes so big they could be used for putain marbles.

"He just walked up to...?"

"Well, we don't know for sure, but it sounds about right, don't you think?" Maurice said.

Obviously his Joli had no intention of letting their fish off the hook, because after a moment or two of trying to hold Maurice's gaze, Courfeyrac looked down. "...so... uh... right. Um... is Harlequin - going to help him?"

A snort escaped before Daniel could think about it and he shook his head. "...you really _haven't_ figured it out." And Joli was shaking his head too, they were both shaking their heads, just like twins - cher. Twins completely unable to understand how two such _bright_ men could be so dense. Oui. That's exactly what we are.

"Figured _what_ out?" Bahorel said.

For once in his life, Daniel got to have the punchline, and he drawled it in a way that he was sure cynics and drunks everywhere would approve of. "...who the _hell_ do you think_ Harlequin_ is?"

Another silence, and look cher, I think we've broken them this time. Both men had turned their eyes finally on his Joly, as though they were scanning him for signs that they might have missed. Little signs that he was indeed capable of wearing a mask and breaking people out of prison. Maurice bore the gazes for a few minutes before waving a hand rather sarcastically.

Courfeyrac opened his mouth and said something stupid. "... _you_?" Like it was impossible or a joke. Daniel was not a violent man, no not _really_. He liked most people and couldn't remember the last time he'd even been in a fight. But right now he was a very thin hair - almost a bald-pated hair - away from punching both Courfeyrac and Bahorel. At once.

Then, of course, Dominic Bahorel _snorted_.

"That," Daniel said in a low growly voice. "Had better rephrase itself as something a lot more grateful." Like, oh dieu, how about '_Merci, Maurice. You got us great stupid idiots out of La Force._' or '_Thank you, Maurice, for not letting the spies turn us in to the government again_.'

Bahorel gave him a wary look. They'd been to enough bars together that Daniel knew Bahorel knew when he should just shut up. "Er... I never would have guessed?" He grinned then, good-humoured old Bahorel lighening the mood. At who's espense? "I mean... really? Who would have thought it of little Jolllly to do something like that?"

_Little_. Joli hated being called 'little'. Insignificant, that meant. Incapable. A wave of annoyance and anger and even a little hurt flooded his Joli's face, and Daniel saw a wave of red, stepped forwards, and his fist met Bahorel's jaw with a crack, knocking him back, but not quite off his chair.

"...I would. 'Little' Joly saved all of us and it didn't surprise me a bit. But maybe I _know_ him and little better than _you_."

His knuckles hurt, like blazes, and everyone was looking at him, just staring as though he'd grown horns or something, as though this was so unexpected a reaction when they insulted his friend. Seen Bahorel punch fellows for less, and what are you staring at? He felt flushed and awful and angry and _hurt_. And the only thing even _almost_ making it better was the light in his Joli's eyes.

"You're..." Bahorel rubbed his jaw back and forth, as though checking he _really_ had been punched by The Eagle. "You're right about that."

Oh am I? Really? He knew he was probably red all the way up his head, being bald... and blushing... or flushing... was not a comfortable combination. He could feel the burning, though part of that was probably how damn angry he was, and _merde..._ putain tears in his eyes, that was _all_ he needed. "...perhaps if you took Grantaire more seriously, he would have told you what he was doing. What, are you going to laugh if I tell you I helped him track down that _connard_ who caused all this mess to start with?"

Because, of course, old _L'aigle_ couldn't _possibly_ be of _use._ Dominic. Dammit. Lucien. I thought we were putain _friends_.

"No, I'm not going to laugh at all." Bahorel said. But they were both staring at him still, eyes wider than before and... oui, thre it _is_, ami. _Shock_.

He wanted to turn over the table, so instead he stepped backwards. "I'll be outside, Joli." His voice was almost steady, and his stride almost sure as he hurried outside and leant against the wall. Did everyone need a reminder who were the friends and who were the enemies? Dieu. It they couldn't stick together... well...

How could they _ever_ do any good? Well, Enjolras? How can we when we feed our own to the lions?

A tear or two fell at last for the cynic and the drunk, and Daniel L'Aigle felt horribly alone.


	6. May Not Be Lost Forever

**A/N Et Voila... I'm trying to keep vaguely to the sense of maybe having some sort of posting schedule somewhere, but it's getting lost in the general chaos of my life. Enjoy! Please review and let us know what you think!**

This month could not get any more insane. First he had been broken out of prison by a pair of madmen (the getting-into-prison part was nothing new), then he had had to tell Enjolras he was putain _wrong_ about Grantaire being a traitor, _then_ he had learned that those madmen were none other than Grantaire himself and the usually cautious, subdued Joly (who was _not_ subdued at all, who in fact was acting like Combeferre would if Combeferre had more of a mean streak)…and _then_ he had been squarely punched by the _Eagle_. Dominic Bahorel's month was getting more and more insane by the minute.

"I won't be long," Joly called after L'Aigle, suddenly looking worried.

"You okay?" Luc asked quietly, turning to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Dominic said. _Damned_ if he was going to admit to anything in front of this new, quite insane Joly.

"_He_ okay?" Luc asked Joly, nodding his head in the direction L'Aigle had taken.

"He will be," Joly said with a forced sort of shrug.

"And _you're_ going to save Grantaire?" Luc ventured cautiously, no doubt remembering the blow he, Dominic, had just taken. It _did_ smart like hell, to tell the truth.

"If I don't, who's going to?" he answered, raising an eyebrow. _There_, there he went again, acting like Combeferre. It was dam' unsettling.

"…you make a sound argument, Joli," Luc said. Dominic nodded along.

"I do try." Joly got up and pushed the empty coffee cup away from his place. "I'm going to go and find Daniel. Good day to you two," he added sarcastically. Bahorel would have paid quite dearly to know where this new Joly had sprung from and _what_, exactly, he had done with the nervous, if good-humoured, one they were all used to.

"Joly…if you need any help…" Courfeyrac said uncomfortably.

"I think it'll be easier with fewer involved. …but thank you."

"De rien, amigo," Luc said. "Bon chance."

"Bon chance," Dominic agreed quietly, around the bruise on his jaw. Joly nodded and went outside, presumably in pursuit of his pet Eagle.

"…that was…unexpected," Luc said finally.

"Yeah…really unexpected," he said.

Luc eyed his jaw, obviously trying not to look too impressed with L'Aigle's handiwork. _Thanks_, ami. Je t'aime aussi, eh? "You need something for that?"

"It'll be fine, I've had worse," he said.

"Well…_yeah_…"

Bahorel just groaned. "God, what a day." Courfeyrac motioned to one of the waitresses to get them a bottle of wine, taking the time to flirt with her a little since Dominic'd offended her earlier by not bothering to.

"…amigo…" he said cautiously, "you don't think Grantaire actually _tried_ to get arrested, do you?"

"Who knows?" he shrugged, trying not to think about it too deeply. "Hell, if Enjolras yelled at _me_ like that, I'd be considering it."

Luc winced. "Oh yeah…I'd forgotten about that. Dieu…"

"I knew he was inhuman, but not…_that_ inhuman," Dominic said.

"I don't think he understood it himself," Luc offered. "A bit frightening when he gets _that_ wrapped up in the Cause and all that."

"Yeah. He can be downright scary sometimes."

Courfeyrac laughed. "_Sometimes_?"

"Well, he's always like that," Bahorel grinned, "it's just only sometimes that it's scary."

"True, true," Luc said with a sip of his wine. "He may be an avenging archangel, but at least he's _our_ avenging archangel, eh?"

"Too true. Hate to be on the other side with him on ours."

"I sometimes get th' feeling he'd win even if he lost," Luc said thoughtfully.

"Oh, oui. If you were to defeat Enjolras...I dunno..." Dominic waved a hand vaguely. "The world would come to an end."

"That's it," his friend grinned. "Imploding planets and th' prophets of Old Testament preaching on about locusts. Might even spot Aristotle wandering around the streets in a bathrobe decrying the nations."

He laughed. "The apocalyptic dream come true. Jehan will be overwhelmed with joy."

"...he'd probably be out writing poetry if it was raining blood, and only complain that the blood made his paper wet."

Dominic chuckled. "Heh. No, he'd just use the blood for ink."

"Thank you ami, now I'm seeing our p'tite Jehan writing poetry in blood on the walls of Paris," Luc groaned. "I'll have nightmares for weeks."

"My apologies," he said, with a laugh that he knew sounded a little hollow. The conversation was doing a poor job of distracting him from Grantaire's plight, and his role in it.

"Come on…ami…it'll be all right," Lucien said unconvincingly.

"The hell it will."

"Looks like they have a plan…"

"A plan isn't anything," Dominic said between long drinks. "No, I should've kept my mouth shut for once."

"It's not your fault," Luc protested. "Well…not _all_ your fault."

True that, ami…some of it's yours. He felt the need to point this out. "Yeah, but why did he end up running into Enjolras?"

Luc sighed. "…because we walked out on him?"

"Yeah." He stared down into his glass, no stopping the regret now he'd let it in. Never do anything halfway, eh?

"Yeah," Luc agreed sheepishly. "And now, I mean…_executed_."

He nodded. Grantaire, to be executed, and they were stuck relying on _L'Aigle_ and _Joly_ to cut him loose? Not that he'd anything against th' men, and of course he respected them as fellow lieutenants of the Amis and all that, but…it was like expecting him and Luc to suddenly pass the bar. Bon dieu, were they ever going to need luck if they didn't want to end up getting executed, themselves.


	7. He Would Extinguish The Sun

**A/N - Because insanemistosingsmore asked me to. :3 Also, since I'm going to be away for the whole weekend and since you've had a few short chapters lately AND since the work on Arc 4 is going _splendidly_, there's a double update. Please review both if you so wish as reviews make us happy and encourage us to update faster.**

Augustin Enjolras approached his second's flat in an uncharacteristically bad temper. Of course Eugene had every right to walk off like this but _really_, he could have let him explain himself. Where was the Eugene Combeferre who normally bore such patience? He knocked loudly at the door, and continued knocking when he found himself ignored. Finally he tried the knob, and strode in when he found it open. He found Combeferre easily, devoted to his eternal task of taking notes. He flicked his gaze up only long enough to register Enjolras' identity, then returned to his task with a pointed frown.

"_Eugene_," he said just as pointedly, knowing it would get the man's attention. They did not use Christian names, as a rule, unless they were genuinely at odds with each other. "Talk to me."

Combeferre set his pen down and leaned back in his chair. "…what?"

"Obviously I've done something wrong, but you won't explain it," he said with some frustration seeping through. "You're always so quick to point out my mistakes. Correct me."

Combeferre made an irritated noise. "You don't want to hear me."

"I am perfectly willing to hear you." He _was_. If he _had _been wrong, well, he wanted to at least know _why_.

"Fine," Combeferre said, folding his arms. "What if he's killed himself?"

"I don't think he has," Enjolras said calmly, firmly, because that was really just insane. "I don't think he has the resolve."

"And if he has?" Eugene looked furiously cold.

"Then what _if_ he has?" Augustin snapped back just as coldly, everything he tried so hard to be beginning to slip, from its sheer weight.

"You've always told me we are not murderers, Augustin."

"And we are not." No, never. We must make sacrifices so that our beloved Liberty may flourish, but never, never shall these sacrifices be of the innocent. The tyrants and their representatives must fall, and all others must choose their sides accordingly. But we shall not murder in her name – never. So wrathful an action would be a disgrace to her purity. Justice is the only cause of death by our hands.

His momentary reverie was broken by Combeferre settling into his best "teacher" mode. "…Grantaire admires you," he said quietly.

"Yes, I suppose, in a very superficial way."

Eugene pointedly ignored this statement. "He often professes a desire to please you."

"Yes, but has he ever followed through on that?"

"...usually you just tell him to go away, and he sometimes does," he said over his glasses before returning to stating his opinion point by point. "He is also a habitual drunk, and as such is prone to moods of depression."

"Perhaps, but I have never seen him in one," Enjolras protested. They might as well be thorough and logical about this.

"…you talked to him in the café, I assume," Combeferre said, continuing to totally ignoring his points. "Was he drunk?"

"Perhaps a little."

Eugene looked as if he were describing the progression of some nervous disease to a lip-biting Joly; the ratio of self-enforced clinical regard to disbelief was about the same. "So you told a drunk man who was not in full possession of his sensibilities, a man who once said that he would die for you, a man who respects and admires you - that the only way you would be happy would be if he removed himself from the world."

"That is not what I told him," Augustin cut in. "He joked that he could not remove himself from the world, and I corrected him on the matter."

"Oh yes? And what did he say to that?" Eugene said, eyebrow raised.

"He…stared at me for a bit…" Enjolras receded into thought. "And…oh…well…maybe I _did_ say that." It was true, now that he thought about it, that there was the possibility Grantaire might well _not_ have understood what I was that he meant. Might have taken him at face value, which Eugene, by the deadening of his eyes, seemed to think was exactly what Augustin really had meant.

"…I see." His voice was heavy with cold anger, and possibly a touch of disappointment.

"You know I didn't mean it like that," Enjolras said uncomfortably. He began to see what must have happened, in Eugene's mind. Surely he thought better of him than that. Surely he did.

Didn't he?


	8. Let Me Correct Your Words

**A/N And here's the second one! Okay, some of this is because I can't wait to see your reactions to the chapter after this. Hold onto your hats ladies and gentlemen, oh - and it's not for the faint of heart. If you have a delicate constitution or are easily upset, don't read chapter 9. Seriously. This arc is T rated for a reason.**

In Vino Veritas, it was said by the ancient philosophers - in wine we see the truth. The truth was, quite frankly, that Eugene Combeferre did not like Grantaire (he could not remember the man's first name or if he had - indeed - ever known it) and had never, indeed, liked him. The man was irritating, distracting and annoying. He paid no serious attention to anything save his wine and sometimes Enjolras' speeches, and found all methods of learning laughable. Eugene Combeferre found Grantaire as a Personage Thrust Upon Him abhorrent

_In Vino Veritas, _mes amis.

The truth was sour, like grapes pressed and processed to make the wine that stole mankind's mental faculties away and turned them into a mockery. To borrow from Biblical proverb - though, no doubt, Enjolras would frown at the use of so theological and monarchistic a text - wine created a man who was less than the creature Nebuchadnezzar had become when Jehovah humbled him, wine lifted a man on the feet of clay as seen by the Prophet Daniel. They saw their heads as golden, king-like... near to heresy in self-love and never quite realising that from the fibula bone down past the lateral malleolus and progressing on inexoribly to the extensor hallucus brevis tendon... there was nothing but montmorillonite-smectite and ferrum...

Clay, my friends. Clay and iron.

No, he had never liked Grantaire. In fact, many times he had wished the man would take Augustin's subtle... and indeed much less than subtle hints and simply leave them be. The only thing that had stopped him from saying so in Words Of One Syllable That May Penetrate The Inebriated Brain was the look that sometimes passed over the drunk's face - like a man who was glimpsing something akin to heaven from a pew in a metaphorical and completely unrepublican hades of his own forging. Sometimes the brain needed to listen to the heart, and his heart had indicated that it was more important to the well-being of this human soul to stay fixed in the cafe than to be driven out.

He was, after all, a doctor. _I will follow that method of treatment which according to my ability and judgment I consider for the benefit of my patient and abstain from whatever is harmful or mischevious. _Method of treatment? Apparently a heavy dose of the gathered Amis d'ABC. Whatever is harmful or mischevious?

Telling him to remove himself from the earth, to start with.

Which was why, when he looked up at his friend and colleague although he understood that the idea that Grantaire - what _was_ his first name? No, not Winecask, certainly. - might actually kill himself had probably not passed through Augustin Enjolras' head, he could not make himself unbend in his disapproval. Whatever the intent, the damage was done and - for the sake of a patient - he had to ensure that it was recognised.

"_If _he _has_ killed himself, Augustin, then you killed him." Combeferre said it quietly, carefully, enunciating it as truth in the same was the Rights of Men were true or the truth that the heart had two chambers. If Grantaire Who Must Have A First Name If I Could But Remember It Right Now had killed himself, then Augustin had given him the weapon with which to do it, knowingly or not.

The look that had almost been understanding, something between horror and confusion faded and Enjolras raised an eyebrow coolly. "I admit it is extreme, but then again he is good for nothing and bad for quite a bit."

God. Dear God in Heaven - although there is some debate still on whether or not you exist - tell me he did not just say that. Combeferre felt a jab of hurt, disappointed hurt that Augustin could _think_ he was heartless enough to _ever_ agree to dismiss a human being as worthless. "...so... we should encourage him to die." You didn't mean that, did you? Not _really_... did you?

"There's no _should_." But he wasn't really denying it either. "I'm merely saying it's not a great loss in terms of the Cause."

Damn your cause, he thought, and for once actually and honestly meant it. "I would say that the loss of human life is always a loss for the cause."

"Perhaps."

Perhaps. So that was it. Just a perhaps in response. _Perhaps_ the sacrifice of blood is always a heavy price to pay. _Perhaps_ it is too heavy a price for a little peace in an over-crowded cafe. _Perhaps_ Grantaire's death would be a mistake.

Is that all you have, ami? Just 'perhaps'? Very well then. He shook his head, finding himself for once without a single thing to say. He had little idea what to do with a 'perhaps'.

"So that's your point?" It was his Let Us Talk About This Like Adults tone, the one he always used when he felt that Combeferre was making too much of a fuss but was willing to discuss the issue for the sake of peace and amity.

Amity be damned, Combeferre thought. Dieu. Apparently I don't _have_ a point. I have a damned _perhaps_. He gave a small shrug, aware that Augustin would repeat the question if he didn't show he had heard him. What do I _do_ with your _perhaps_ and your _points_? I can't save a life with them. They're no good to the people, to Grantaire, or to the blasted Cause...

"Well, what do you think I should do?"

Combeferre didn't know and he couldn't bring himself to care. After all the lectures, the lists of meals, the laundry and the arguments... "Whatever you want," he said finally, almost surprised by the lack of emotion in his voice. "I'm not your _nanny_."

"But you always have been." Augustin sounded startled.

Only since you decided to lose your soul for your quest for liberty, ami. "Then I must be a very poor one," he said heavily. "to have let this happen."

There was a silence then, for which Combeferre heartily thanked the God who might or might not exist. He massaged his temples and thought about the homework he had to finish, the cadaver he had seen yesterday morning and how very much he hoped Grantaire wasn't going to be the next cadaver he saw.

After a few minutes, Enjolras shifted a little. "Combeferre."

Dieu, he sounded _hurt_. "Enjolras?"

"Really." a sigh. "What am I supposed to do? All you've done is scold me."

Oh. That's what I've been doing, is it? A scold. He had a brief mental image of the contraptions used to control _scolds_ and winced a little. Alors, ami... is _that_ how you think of me? "Well I'm not scolding you anymore, am I?"

"No, but you won't help me either."

"Is there any use?"

Infuriatingly, Augustin chose this moment - as he sometimes did - to be inescapably logical. "How do you know if you don't try?"

It was a partial component of the rules for scientific experiments and hypothesis. As a scientific man himself, it was not possible to resist so he sat up. Very well, my leader. You call, I answer, as I always do. Let us try your hypothesis. "...fine. What do you want from me, Augustin?" It was a wrench to continue calling him by his first name, something they only ever did when feeling at odds with one another - or occasionally when he, himself was a concerned _Nanny_ with Enjolras health or living arrangements.

_Scold._

Enjolras paused and looked at him intently, a strange expression on is face. The kind that usually meant he was thinking too hard about some facet of himself that needed perfecting. The kind that usually would make Combeferre want to _nanny_ him. "I want you to do something besides hate me."

"_Hate_ you?" For a moment Eugene wanted for perhaps the first time in their acquaintanceship to simply stand up and punch Augustin Enjolras in the jaw. Hate you? _Hate_? Dear _Dieu_, ami, do you have _any_ respect for me at all?

Perhaps Augustin heard it in his tone, for he made an effort to retreat. "Or whatever it is that has you not acting like yourself!"

Like a _scold_ and a _nanny_, you mean? Very well, Augustin, I'll tell you. "...you disappointed me."

"Oh..." suddenly comprehension flooded his friend's face. "I see." It wasn't, perhaps, very _hopeful_ comprehension, but... it looked as though he understood, maybe. And suddenly Combeferre felt the anger drain away. If he wasn't careful _oh_ so very careful, this could easily turn inwards and then he'd be unable to get Augustin to sleep for... dieu knew how long.

"You are capable of so much _good_, ami..." he said carefully. "It _hurts_ me to see you causing _pain_ instead."

For a moment, Augustin met his gaze with his medically improbable piercing stare, and then he sighed. "You're right."

Thank god. "I try."

"Thank you."

"...always, Augustin."

"I do appreciate it, Eugene."

He couldn't help the very slightest twitch upwards of his lips at that. There were many late nights, unnecessary lectures, cups of coffee and meals and essay notes, weekends spent listening to speeches and correcting grammatical and theoretical errors that were encompassed by that simple single phrase. Combeferre had known that Enjolras accepted his help as necessary, a functional useful aid which would be for the benefit of the Cause. But gratitude was not something he had ever expected, even though sometimes it would have been nice. "...even when I'm your nanny?"

"...yes. Even when you're my nanny."

Combeferre laughed - a contraction of the diaphragm which was not particularly mirthful and far more surprised than pleased. For Augustin to admit that he was almost prepared to believe they had somehow been transported into a realm where infinite possibilities of what might have been or could have been played out and changed the fabric of what really was. He had often mused on the possibility that such a place existed, caused and created by the sheer impact a slight alteration of action could bring to the face of society. Perhaps in this reality Augustin might even be prepared to admit he was wrong once in a while.

With a slight start that indicated he had been brought to the realisation that he was still standing by a growing stiffness in his lumbar muscles, Enjolras sat down and looked at Combeferre, who found himself looking back more warmly than he had at first intended. This was not over by any means. Human Life had been held at far too little consequence, and that was something he could never ever bring himself to condone. Whether it be useful men like Bahorel or Courfeyrac or useless men like Grantaire - they were still men. Sometimes he feared, deep in his heart, that Augustin forgot not only that he himself was human, but that the others were also. He seemed to look on them sometimes in terms of their usefulness to the cause - like tools to be utilised in the most strategic way - not as men who needed assurance and friendship as well as a leader.

"I think I'm hungry," Augustin said absently, flipping a few pages of a notebook with the sort of mild interest that indicated in Combeferre's mind that his captain might as easily eat the noteboook as read it.

Dear Dieu in Heaven (whom, by the by, we appear to have decided _does_ exist, even if simply for the purposes of acting as a placebo in situations like this) the man just did not take care of himself. Combeferre got up quickly, momentarily worried that perhaps Augustin had not eaten _anything_ since the last time he had forced him to. "I could get you something...?"

"If you've got something." He said it in a vaguely dubious tone, as if the idea of people actually having food to hand was beyond his comprehension.

At least in his perception of them all as Tools of the Great and Glorious Cause, Augustin was even-handed. Combeferre gave a little shake of his head and moved into the kitchen, finding some bread which he had purchased earlier in the day as well as cheese and some sausage. He prepared two plates out of a sense of fairness above any particular hunger on his part. Besides, Enjolras typically submitted to being forced to eat more easily if he was eating as well.

Ami... will I ever be able to convince you to treat yourself as a man instead of a machine?

He returned to the living room and placed a plate in front of Augustin, who actually started eating before Combeferre had even had a chance to sit down. Hm. Surprising. More evidence was piling up to support the Realm of Infinite Possibilities theory. Perhaps he should review his existential philosophy books and begin drafting a theoretical thesis to the effect. He found that the food now looked even less appealing than before, and could do not much more than pick a little at the bread.

"I didn't realise you were studying," Augustin said suddenly, looking at the papers as though he had only just realised what they must signify.

"...it's what I'm usually doing when I'm not attending classes or collecting your laundry." Combeferre paused a moment and then indicated a thick pile of notes which included a fully completed essay on the _Code Civil des Francais_ as developed by Napoleon. "Those are for you."

He looked exceptionally uninterested. "Oh. All right."

Of course if he'd bother to attend his Legal History class then he'd know it was due tomorrow, wouldn't you Augustin? It really is quite an interesting class, though I must say writing five-thousand words about Napoleon was not something I was expecting to do when I started attending. Combeferre picked up the bread, turned it five times in clock-wise circles and then put it down again. Duty. That was the theme of the day, apparently. Duty to the Cause.

Augustin was looking at him. "...are you all right? You're not eating."

"I'm not hungry." Now they had exchanged roles it would appear. Combeferre jabbed the bread rather viciously and waited for Augustin to suggest he take a nap or sort out his bookshelf or go for a walk in order to raise his cardiovascular activity and replenish his blood stream with fresh oxygen.

Instead he merely said "Oh."

It was tempting to laugh at that, so instead he collected both their plates and carried them into the kitchen to scrape them clean and wash them. _Oh_. Merci, ami. If you had said anything else then I would have had to upgrade the Infinite Possibilities from a theory to a hypothesis, which would demand more scientific testing than I currently have time for. A thought struck him that Augustin would probably take the notes home, put them on his desk and conveniently forget about them. Damn. "For Dieu's sake, don't forget to hand it _in_ on time!"

"What?" he heard the rustling of papers and then Augustin called out in what sounded like a mixture of irritation and surprise, "You wrote it?"

This was such an obvious statement of fact phrased in a rhetorical question which did not really necessitate and answer, that Combeferre merely finished washing the dishes and started putting them away in silence.

"I was _going_ to write it..."

Hah. He returned to the living room, and raised an eyebrow. "...it's due tomorrow, Enjolras."

"i thought there was another week before..." Enjolras blinked up at him, eyes blanking out a little as he seemed to attempt to review exactly where in the month he was currently situated, How He Had Got There And Why Had No One Told Him That Time Was Passing? "...is it Tuesday already?"

Combeferre smiled a little. "Yes. It is. And you can afford to be late with this one, or you'll fail the class."

"How do you know?" Now that the date had been established, Enjolras was looking through the essay in some interest, nodding every now and again over the points. The amazing thing about Enjolras was that despite his continual disregard for the important of lectures and attendance, he still managed to somehow _understand_ the concepts.

"Because I've been going to that class, of course." Did you _really_ not _know_ that? "The lecturer told me."

With an air of finality, Enjolras put the essay down on top of the other notes and glanced up at him. "I don't even know what class this is _for_, Combeferre."

Ah thank dieu, they were both on last name basis again. Some semblance of How Things Should Be was being returned at last. "That might be because you've never attended the classes," he said, and then added as Enjolras eyed the essay again, "Don't worry, that will get a good mark." Something which really should never be in doubt, mon ami.

Nodding with his usual firmness, Enjolras folded up the papers and put them into the pocket of his jacket. "Combeferre, you are a rare torch in the night that has fallen upon us."

Eugene blinked twice, feeling a sudden rush of warm pleasure at the compliment, rare as they were from his friend and leader. "...thank you."

"You're quite welcome."

A proper smile twitched at the corners of his lips and he sighed a little. "...I really need to finish my own assignments now, Enjolras. If you don't mind." _I_ have an essay due tomorrow as well.

"Oh, of course." He got up at that and actually remembered his coat without being reminded.

Combeferre looked over the tops of his spectacles and assumed a tone of mock sternness. "Don't forget to eat dinner, and do _please_ hand in the paper."

"Oh, I will. I promise." For once Enjolras did not appear to be contesting his advice, and if Only That Would Last Longer Than A Week.

"Good." He rose and followed him to the door, seeing him out with a wave and a nod before returning to the table and his papers. He felt at once both lighter than before and more concerned. This whole business with M. Scaramouche, Joly and Harlequin being suddenly in cohorts - in fact Joly altogether with this sudden and incomprehensible onset of sheer undiluted confidence and sarcasm - Grantaire's disappearance and Enjolras' part in it...

How was he meant to sort all _this_ out?


	9. Courage My Friend But Above All Prudence

**A/N - As stated in the previous chapter - this chapter is not for the faint of heart. Hope you all are still enjoying the series and will continue to read and enjoy our works. Once again, please do review if you are enjoying as we find it very encouraging to get feedback.**

No one could deny that Pilon was but a mask, a tool, an alias. And yet behind that mask lay another mask. And another. And another.

And behind that last mask lay Georges Duval.

A Surete, yes, but formerly a murderer, and formerly of that a thief, and formerly of_ that_ a gamin in the hot, dirty, welcoming streets of Paris. He lived by his wits and always had, and when said wits failed him he lived by his muscle. Honest work, when it paid; and dishonest work, when it didn't. They were really all the same to him, at the end of the day, as long as it wasn't _his_ neck under the blade. It wasn't an especially happy way to live, but _damned_ if it couldn't be rewarding sometimes. Times like now, when he had Scaramouche, Carouble as they called him in the office, firmly in his considerable power.

Duval sauntered down the corridor, touching the knife in his pocket now and again to ensure that it was there. It might come in useful during his questioning. Then he turned the corner and saw the man in the cell – the unnamed M. Carouble. Still that ironic grin even in the captivity his false key of a name could not free him from. Two could play that game, neh? He leaned against the bars of the door, stretching a leer beneath his aging moustache. "Hey, you."

"Mmm?" Carouble said, straightening up and returning his look with apparent interest.

Duval jerked his head in the direction of the other end of the corridor. "It's your lucky day. You're wanted for questioning."

"Oh my," the prisoner drawled. "Can I do my hair first? Will there be champagne and cake?"

"Yeah, and if you're good I'll put extra frosting on it."

"That sounds just dandy." He began to get up – slowly, Duval noted with a delicious sense of triumph, and with a subtle grimace of pain.

"I'm _delighted_ that you think so." He watched Carouble stagger to his feet, relishing the thought of those legs unable to carry their owner any further toward trickery.

"Do we have bracelets today, mouchard?" he asked as he made his way up to the door.

"As a matter of fact we do," Duval said, pulling handcuffs from his pocket and dangling them casually before Carouble's eyes. "I'm sure they'll look lovely on you."

Carouble extended his wrists with a small sigh. "Are they still _cold_?"

He widened his grin dangerously. "I don't know, why don't you tell me?" _Snap_ went the cuffs onto the wrists. It was a satisfying sound that hinted at more to come.

"A shade chillier than before, I think," his prisoner commented. "I should complain about the service in here."

Duval unlocked the cell lightly and pulled him out unceremoniously, grinning yet wider than before. "Oh, you can if you want, but I don't think you'd like what we do to people who complain."

The corridor before him was long, and had a draught; generally just the experience of being led through it was an intimidation tactic all by itself. However, as they walked further on, Duval heard Carouble _whistling_ behind him. "Stop whistling," he snapped, yanking the chain that connected them, and the man on the other end subsided into quiet humming instead. Of all the things Carouble did to get under his skin, that dieu-damned flippancy under fire was one of the most irritating. Duval was cheered considerably by the sight of the little door at the corridor's end, reminding him of the comeuppance his opponent was shortly to receive. Pulling the door shut behind them, he tossed the prisoner unceremoniously into the room's only piece of proper furniture, a sturdy, scarred chair.

There was one light, the torch that he had taken from its post outside the room on their way in. It illuminated the corners but vaguely, glossing over the sharp wooden and metal edges of practical interrogation aids both ancient and new, but shone bright on Carouble's ugly face. It was stony and resistant, and Duval felt his own features harden in response. No matter what tactic the traitor might throw at him, he was fully prepared to throw it right back – harder. Carouble seemed to sense this, lowering his tension as he raised his eyebrows. Duval mirrored him, leaning back against the wall. Both men knew that the other was only bluffing at ease, but in the end – it was the _bluff_ that counted.

"I'm going to warn you beforehand," Duval drawled, "you get exactly one chance to answer my questions before I break another of your ribs. Clear?"

"Quite understood," Carouble said, half-shutting his eyes against the torchlight.

"Good. First question: Where are your confederates?"

"What confederates?" the man in the chair said quite seriously.

"Your confederates who helped you with the prison break and with detaining me."

Carouble blinked politely. "I'm afraid I didn't get names."

"Oh, really."

"Yes, so sorry."

All at once that thin-stretched grin turned into a deliciously twisted grimace of pain as Duval's right fist drove hard into his chest. "Let's try this again," Duval said politely, smiling as he drew back. "Who are your confederates?"

"…I don't know," Carouble said, ever so politely as well, obstinately, _infuriatingly_.

"_Don't_ you?" he replied, barely remembering to maintain the necessary separation between his prisoner and the raw anger in his blood.

"Not at all."

"I think you're lying," Duval seethed. Carouble gave only a small shrug in reply, and Duval slammed another fist into his side. The familiar feeling of breaking bones shot up his arm like an injection of some precious narcotic. "Well?" he said in response to Carouble's muffled yelp.

The man drew a steadying breath before he spoke again. "... you do realise you can't continue breaking my ribs indefinitely. Sooner or later one will puncture a lung and save the gallows a job."

"I know what I'm doing," Duval said, returning to their conversational tone; and he did. Better than a doctor for knowing precisely what would break, and where, and when. Carouble would not die unless he, Georges Duval, Master-of-Life-and-Death, wanted him to.

"Fine then. No, I don't know who they are."

"You're sure?" Duval said silkily, drawing his knife from his pocket and running his fingers idly over the handle.

"Oh oui," Carouble said steadily.

"Tsk," Duval remarked. "We'll have to come back to that."

"As you say, of course," his prisoner breathed.

"How did you meet these confederates whom you do not know?"

"Some bar somewhere," Carouble attempted vaguely. "We happened to have a common goal and felt it would be better for all of us if names were kept secret."

"Really."

"Cleaner. Safer. Besides, I like the name Scaramouche. Far more appealing than my real name." Duval closed his fist around the handle of the closed knife and let his anger burst free against Carouble's cursed jawbone. That putain mask cracked at last and the prisoner in the chair glared up at him freely, spitting away the blood now running from his mouth.

"Are you ready to tell the truth yet, scum?" he said fiercely, at last dropping his own mask as well and smirking down at Carouble in the fashion of a strong man striking at an earthbound reptile.

Carouble continued to glare and to spit out blood. "I didn't hear a question, GrippeJesus."

Another fist, his left this time, silenced the impudent prisoner and left him reeling and bleeding further. "Then you need to clean out your ears," Duval seethed coldly.

Carouble attempted to speak a few times before finally managing it. "…what was the question?" he groaned.

"The question was, who are your confederates and how did you come to be together?"

"I told you that already," he said coldly.

"I think you can do better than that."

"That's all there is to tell," the prisoner said, glaring up again at him with pure hatred in his eyes. How he _loved _the look of impotent fury.

"Liar," he hissed.

"What more do you want to hear?"

"The truth," Duval said. "I can tell that you know it. I'm not as stupid as I know you think I look."

"Oh no," Carouble said, getting some of the impudent twinkle in his eyes back. "I never underestimate a man with a knife in his hands."

"And now?" Duval asked, smoothly flipping the knife back into his pocket.

"I never underestimate a man in _possession_ of a knife, either," he said, eyeing Duval.

"See if you can ignore it," Duval commanded.

"I'll do my best."

"So. Let's try again. Who are you working with?"

"_I don't know_."

_Smack_, his fist connected with Carouble's head once more. "No. Again."

"I don't _know_."

_Smack_. "No. Again."

"I. Don't. Know."

Back into his pocket went his hand and out again came the knife, the blade of which he flipped out in one smooth motion. "Yes, you do."

Carouble's eyes narrowed. "No I don't."

Duval let the tip of the blade just touch the tip of Carouble's nose. "Yes, you do."

"No I don't," he said, glaring back.

"I think you do," he said quietly, threateningly, holding the knife in place.

"…all well in here, Georges?"

_Merde_. Duval did not need to turn his head to know that it was Marc Chancard, another of the Surete, who had just insinuated himself into the room. He was careful not to move or relax, lest his prisoner do the same. "Just fine, if only I could crack this damn nut."

"Can't crack him with that blade, the magister would never approve," Marc said mildly.

Duval sighed, seeing that the man had a point. "I suppose so." He flicked the knife back away and watched as Carouble slumped forward in the chair. "You take all the fun out of everything, you know that?"

Marc grinned. "That's my job description. The Mec wrote it 'specially for me. Whoops…he's gone to sleep."

Duval mentally gritted his teeth. Of course. Vidocq must have sent Marc to make sure he wasn't getting carried away. Outwardly, still, he was all calm amiability. "Tsk. It's not like I was getting anything out of him anyway…"

"He not a cooperative fiston?" Marc asked, inspecting Carouble's humbled figure.

"Not at all."

"Not without encouragement, I see," he commented as he tipped the prisoner's head from side to side.

"It was only a little," Duval said defensively. "He's going to get hung anyway, so I don't see what it matters."

"Ah, but we can't be stealing him from the gallows, that wouldn't be nice and polite and all the other things the Mec says we're meant to be," Marc teased cheerfully, lifting Carouble easily. "Here, I'll carry him back to his cell for you."

"As long as he can walk up those steps to the rope…ah, thanks."

"De rien. Want to give me th' keys to th' manacles or you keen to leave them on him?"

"Might as well spring 'im," Duval said, accepting his losses and handing over the keys to Marc. "He's not going anywhere."

Marc laughed at this and carried M. Carouble, M. Scaramouche, M. Traitor and Scofflaw and Flouter of Authority, back down the draughty hall to his cell, while Duval remained behind to seethe quietly to himself and promise the sharp-edged instruments in the dim-lit corners that one day, they would find their bloody fulfillment in the name of justice, just as he would one day surely exact his revenge.


	10. Sad As Despair

He lied to us. Lied. _Lied_ to us, mon ami. He lied like that's suddenly some sort of ... _really_ like that's an excuse for sitting here and looking at the table cloth and picking at a pasty and just... just... _sitting._ Winecask, they all said. Lying winecask, a friend who is not a friend. Lying winecask, unlucky Eagle and silly little pretty Joli. What a trio we are, mes amis. I wonder, if Joli and I were in prison and set to hang would they just sit and think 'well, they _lied_ to us..."

_And L'aigle owes me ten sous..._

Really... he'd not expected to get _hurt_ coming out like this to declaim the news to all assembled at the Cafe Musain. Apart from the news that they had to declaim - and dieu, dear dieu that had been a shock in the morning. After all the talk of interrogations and spies and the police tracking them down to their homes and making a mess all over their nice clean steps which Maurice would really really not like, he'd slept uneasily and more than once woken to the clear and unbidden thought that he wished very much Grantaire had done all this on his own and not involved his Joli or himself in the madness. Then the newspaper had revealed that an unnamed radical had been sentenced to death for treason. It was a shock tactic, Maurice had explained rather nervously, setting and resetting the table and having three sugars in his coffee when really, _really_, cher you shouldn't be having any at all... and blinking over and over again at the headline as though that might make it go away.

Daniel hadn't understood what he had meant until a bit later when he realised that this... this what they were feeling, all fear and anger and worry and tension and need to do something right away before the end could happen in a big horrible black ropey lump, this was what the police had intended for M. Scaramouche's confederates to feel.

Grantaire. Executed. M. Scaramouche - gone. It was a sobering thought. Just not sobering enough and now he was standing outside in the cold air with bruised knuckles wondering if Bahorel was going to call _him_ a liar next. Perhaps being Pedrolino meant that _he_ could go get hanged and they wouldn't notice or bother doing anything but stare into their coffee cups and make quips about whether or not Enjolras was quite done making faces at Combeferre's notes while Combeferre wasn't looking.

Winecask, he thought sadly, rubbing his knuckles. Winecask, Eagle, Joli. Did they ever see us to begin with, cher? Did they _really_?

As though he knew that Daniel is thinking about him - and sometimes Daniel almost wonders if somehow Maurice can just tell because he's so smart, really he is, even if they do call him small and little and pretty - Maurice and Harlequin together walked out of the cafe. "Daniel?"

Just his voice is enough to remind him that this is all a lot bigger than being offended or hurt feelings or not liking the way someone keeps saying 'he lied' without once saying 'he saved us too' and Daniel dropped his head a bit. Oh you great unlucky fool, if you'd not punched Bahorel, maybe he'd have helped and now there's only the Unlucky Eagle and His Growing List, Silly Little Maurice and His Coffee, and The Fanmaker and his Poland left between the Winecask and the Noose. "I made a mess of things, didn't I."

Instead of agreeing apologetically and pointing out the strategic implications of his actions, Joli just said very simply, "No, not at all. I thought you were great."

"Really?" he smiled just a tiny bit. Because _really_, Joli would _know_ what was great.

"Yeah. He _needed_ that telling off."

Behind the rush of gratitude... and _thank_ you, cher, I needed to know you thought so too, because _really_, cher, I just do things sometimes and aren't we all fortunate I didn't bust my hand on his jaw? Daniel felt the anger again, and clenched both fists not quite caring that one of them hurt. "I don't like how they act as though you are funny - or a joke. It makes me angry."

Even if I don't always do anything about it because I'm too good-natured, ami, I really am. Good-natured and rather dim from the sounds of it. Dim like a pair of glasses all fogged up. Maurice put a hand on his shoulder and made everything better almost immediately.

"I know. I know," it sometimes startled Daniel that the others couldn't see the strength in Joli. Just because he was smart enough to know that one could get ill didn't mean he was defined by a large medical journal and a small mirror to check his tongue with. There was this, too, and so many, _really_ so many other things. "But at least it means no one's going to guess."

"I suppose." He nodded and couldn't help grinning a little at how very Scaramouchean the practicality of that statement was. Now what was it that was happening to them? Was Grantaire mad and infecting them with his crazy, gloriously dramatic, multicoloured madness? It struck Daniel then that he had actually gotten away with punching Dominic Bahorel - brawler and boxer and terror of any self-respecting cafe and wineshop in Paris. "Dieu... I'm lucky he didn't hit me back!"

Maurice chuckled. "Yeah, you are! I'd have had to get between you."

Rare indeed was the time that Daniel Lesgle, he who was born with a black cat in his lap under a ladder and over the shards of a broken mirror while his mother wore green and somewhere a left-handed groom looked at a left-handed bride before their wedding, could comment on his _good_ luck. "...maybe my luck is changing, eh?" Let us hope and pray so. If just for the sake of a Winecask Who Lies. "So what are we off to do now?"

"We're going to find Feuilly and go _do_ this."

It still surprised him, just a little only I promise, cher, that they could even think of these things without Grantaire. "Good." We're going to go do this alone. Us three out of all the Amis. "...dear dieu _I'm _a better friend to him and I don't even like him that much." Nightmares. Lists of Things I Never Want To Happen To My Joli. Visions of Hangmen and Nooses in his breakfast coffee...

"Afraid so." Maurice sighed a little. Perhaps they were both too soft-hearted to be masked spies. But Daniel rather thought it suited them better than the alternative.

This decided, his made a face and a grimace that said 'I don't Know What Friends Are Anymore, Cher, Excepting You Of Course' and said "That's sad," and meant it. "Let's go get Alexandre."

"Let's," and there was the bright, the frighteningly manic glint again, and cher I think you can stop drinking coffee now, you've had enough. More than enough. Definitely.

He was even more convinced of this fact by the time they reached Feuilly's place, Maurice having taken several inadvisable short-cuts, had a furiously energetic argument with an elderly man who had tried to sell them some dead cats and Maurice _would_ go into all the details on why this was unhygenic, and finally all-but sprinted up the steps to Feuilly's door, which was flanked on either side by a slightly artistic pair of small and very hungry looking plants. Maurice knocked on the door while Daniel, having regained his footing on the luckiness ladder, promptly careened into one of the plants and put it out of its hungry misery.

Feuilly opened the door and gave them both a hooded, guarded look which seemed to indicate that Daniel had perhaps not been the only one afraid of police footsteps in the night. Though, of course, Feuilly had even less to fear, as if the Spy and the Policeman asked the Winescask _Who Helped You?_ then Feuilly's name would not even come up. He wasn't sure whether to feel envious or superior and tried to feel both at once just in case.

Which was a little difficult as he was currently trying to apologise for the death of the starved plant.

Feuilly shooed them inside and shut the door firmly behind them, not bothering with pleasantries. "Forget the plant. We've got to worry about Grantaire."

_Lying Winecask_, Daniel thought grimly, and felt of a sudden even more upset. Why were they the only ones who cared? At least Combeferre and Enjolras hadn't known who Scaramouche was. "Oui... we do." He recalled that Feuilly, as their Only Other Friend and Partner in More Crime Than I Think Being in A Republican Group Really Qualifies Me For, had not been privy to the latest developments. Oh _cher_, reallly, how lucky for me. I get to be the one who tells him. "Seems we've found out why he went looking for trouble."

"Oh, dieu." Feuilly frowned a little in obvious concern that made Daniel feel oddly relieved. "Who told him to go jump in the river?"

It would almost have been ironic, that exact phrasing, if it weren't so damned sad. Daniel wondered if Grantaire would appreciate the irony of it all. Their Papa Scaramouche seemed capable of finding a laugh in anything. Perhaps even he would not quite have the diaphragm (thank you, cher Joli) to laugh at his own impending death. In salute to the lost irony, Daniel simply said, "That would have been Enjolras."

"...I was joking," Feuilly said after a long and nasty pause. "He actually said that?"

"Afraid so," Maurice managed to look sombre, which was a definite improvement on the tight fixed grin he had been sporting.

Daniel nodded. "Sounded like it."

To his credit, Feuilly did not question this, simply saying a quiet and fervent , "Oh mon dieu." He was silent, apparently in thought, and then added, with surprising perceptiveness, "I be Combeferre was really pissed at him when he found out."

"Incredibly," Maurice said succinctly.

The episode deserves more comment than that, cher. "Combeferre actually walked out."

Feuilly proved him right, eyebrows shooting up to his hairline and eyes opening wide. "Actually _walked out?"_ Because really? Combeferre did not walk out on the Glorious Leader. Ever. Not even when Enjolras made impolite remarks about studying.

Such a moment deserved emphasis, so Daniel nodded. "_walked_ out."

"After which," Maurice said, sitting on the arm of the sofa and picking at it absently, "we had a bit of a... confrontation with Dominic and Lucien."

Thank you, Cher. Thank you for the 'we'. Really, cher, you didn't have to say 'we'. You could have said 'Daniel'. But you didn't. He laughed a little anyway, and clarified for Feuilly, "I punched Dominic."

He'd never really gotten to know Feuilly very well. A practical quiet sort of fellow, he'd thought. Very serious, very intense, and god save you if you mentioned Poland. He'd never really considered the man as a _friend_ per se. More of a _comrade_. But when Feuilly simply raised both eyebrows in an impressed sort of way and with no indication that he had any doubt as to whom was in the wrong, said merely "What did th' bastard _do?_" Daniel wondered why they had never been friends before.

"Made fun of Joli." It came out as something of a growl, and he saw Maurice shrug a little at Feuilly as though to say '_Really, just don't mess with my Daniel_'. Was it the fact that he'd punched _someone_ or the fact that the someone was Bahorel?

Whatever it was, it wasn't currently important in the least. "Anyway," he said, feeling out of place derailing the conversation as though M. Baldpate actually had some idea where things should be headed for once. "Considering the fact that no one _else_ is going to help him," it's so much more useful to sit around in cafes and drink wine and coffee, after all. "Let's do something about Grantaire."

"I was hoping you'd get to that soon," Feuilly said.

Pedrolino, mon cher Harlequin, has filled his office reminding us all. Please... take over. He looked at Maurice rather desperately, having absolutely no clue how to start a meeting about breaking someone out of prison and _really_, Maurice had already _done_ this once.

"All right." Harlequin or Maurice or whatever he was meant to call him, pulled the papers of the prison out and laid them across Feuilly's rather small dining table. "I have the plan of the Prefecture and all the notes we made last night here."

Recognising the slight tension in Maurice's shoulders as well as the surreptitious glances he was making towards Feuilly's - _Alexandre's_ - kitchen as a request for more coffee, Daniel sighed a little and made his way over to the kitchen to light the stove and put some water on to boil. When he finally returned, Alexandre was deep in discussion with Harlequin, bent over the papers with each of them jabbing at different parts and rattling off suggestions at a frightening rate.

As he put the coffee down on the table, Alexandre was saying, "Did we decide which direction to come from?"

That, mon ami, I know. "Seemed to be that the north side is better to approach from." He leant over and tapped the map with a finger, and Alexandre all but leapt on it, tracing the route himself from where Daniel was pointing to through the buildings and the various cells.

"Right." He gave a succinct nod, as though pleased, and Daniel hoped very hard that this was making a lot more sense to one of the others than it was currently making to him.

Joli was drinking his second cup of the coffee already. "All right then. North side."

"And me as distraction, how'm I going to do that?" Not that I'm not highly relieved that I'll be distracting _them_ and not _you, _cher...

His Joli looked him up and down for a moment and then simply said, "You should impersonate a guard." As though it was the most logical thing in the world and _really_, why hadn't everyone thought of it yet?

"...a very... _bad_ guard?" he asked tentatively, able to see the merit in it... and I am trusting you here, cher. I am. Really. It's just a little hard to see how we're going to...

As if he could read his mind, Maurice clasped his hands around his coffee cup and got _that_ look on his face. His contemplative look when he was turning over a new piece of work for an essay or puzzling all the holes out of one of Daniel's arguments for an assignment. "Yes. Yes, I think so." His voice was Harlequin's voice, confidant and cool, despite a slightly higher pitch due to the coffee. "We'll take out the first guard and give you his uniform, and then you can go distract the others."

"Yes sir!" Daniel saluted smartly, and smiled a little to see Maurice trying to hide a grin.

"Are we going to need weapons?" Alexandre interjected.

Maurice considered it seriously, obviously going over their options in his head. "I don't know, are we?"

"Honestly," and Daniel was a little surprised to find himself participating once more. In the Amis meetings he frequently stayed silently at the back except when someone needed a cheerful joke about luck, or a story about no luck or someone to tell them what a very fabulous idea theirs was. Yet here he was with his Joli and Feuilly, and they were making real honest plans together. "I think not. Apart from something to overpower the guards... perhaps one gun. In all reality, mes amis, if it comes to a fight then we've already lost."

Alexandre didn't blink or look surprised or ask what had happened to the real Daniel. He just nodded. "Fair enough. What are we going to do about the first guard? Just knock him cold?"

"Well, we could always chloroform him," Maurice said calmly.

Well, if you've got the chloroform, cher... "That might be the best recourse." He paused mid nod... a thought crossing his mind, and then another. Problems. Questions. "I have two questions," he said out loud and quelled a sudden ridiculous urge to raise his hand.

Joli looked serious and drank more coffee. "Ask away."

"First..." he paused and made a face involuntarily. "We know it got a bit rough. What if he's badly hurt? How do we get him out?"

Rather to his dismay, Maurice simply made an identical face and finished his coffee. "That... is a very good question."

Cher, you were meant to answer it. "Second," and this one was even less pleasant. "Uh... if this is a protracted and melodramatic was to kill himself... what if he doesn't want to leave?" After all, Grantaire was a dramatic man. He might not appreciate his glorious moment of sacrifice being wasted.

Again, neither of his companions seemed eager to answer the questions, Alexandre merely making an 'Ooh,' noise while Maurice frowned and worried his lip and then said rather tetchily and worriedly, "I hadn't thought of that..."

And he hadn't meant to worry them or make them upset or unhappy, he'd just thought... _thought_ that perhaps... he shrugged. "It just... seemed to me that might be a problem?" Apologetically because I don't want to ruin your plans or anything, cher.

"Well, it could be," Maurice said reasonably. "Depending on exactly how strongly Enjolras told him to go kill himself."

The words rose unbidden as they so often did when he really didn't want to remember something and never did when he had an exam. "What did he say? 'We ended by agreeing that the only way we could get along is if he were to remove himself from the earth entirely'?"

There was a brief silence in which Joli nodded, and Alexandre - having not been there to hear it the first time, winced in sympathy for their departed drunkard. After a moment or two, Daniel sighed. "I suppose we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it, eh?"

"I suppose so," Maurice said slowly.

It seemed he had killed the mood of plans and ideas with his morbid questioning, and cher I am so very sorry. I am _really_. So he sat down at last and looked at the map and asked something else to distract them. "So... once we've got to him, how do we get him out?"

Ideas flowed once more, pens were used as mock weapons, as pointers and even to pick teeth - much to Maurice's horror. There was too much coffee and worry and tension and a buzz like a hum of urgency. Not much time before he's dead. The winecask, the liar, the saviour and the friend.

Our friend.


	11. The Aid Of A Gentleman

**A/N - As a side note to readers confused by the overuse of argot in chapter nine, my apologies. I _really_ forget after using it so much in _my_ writing that everyone doesn't understand it -_-. Sorry! 'Carouble' means a false key and is the Surete name for Scaramouche. 'Cogne' and 'Cabestan' both other argot words which show up periodically mean 'policeman'. I'll try to remember to translate as we go but if I don't, please do mention it in a review or PM and I will rectify.**

**Also, for those of you who are Surete geeks (I am! I am!), we do realise we're playing a tad fast and loose with the Surete procedure here, and also that Vidocq wasn't in charge in 1830. If possible, please suspend quibbles for the sake of the story. :)  
**

The sharp mixture of fear, caffeine, and (strangely?) camaraderie adulterating Maurice Joly's blood was more than enough to hold him steadily on edge – ready for anything – he knew they would need to be. Under darkness, getting into the prison was not an issue; the quiet and knowledgeable application of a lock-pick (where _did_ Feuilly pick these things up, really?) was currency enough for their passage into the unexpectedly well-lit labyrinth beyond. He felt all his hairs stand on end as they crept through the halls, passing empty cells, occupied cells, alcoves, dark pits of hallways. Daniel followed behind cautiously; Alexandre, all calm and steadiness, took up the rear. Maurice led, the route they had planned burning in his mind's eye, carrying the knapsack with their rope and chloroform and a single pistol, because as Daniel had put it so well, if it came to a fight they would be lost already.

And then there was the guard in the hall, quite a tall fellow but Maurice didn't get much of a look at him; Daniel had already pulled his head back and then there was nothing for it to leap forward and hold the chloroform-soaked cloth over his face. It really wasn't an approved method of anaethesia, but Joly justified its use to himself as experimentation on people who deserved anything that might happen to go wrong.

"He's _heavy_," Daniel whispered as he lowered the guard's unconscious body to the floor and began stripping him of his uniform.

"I can see the other two down at the very end of the hall," Alexandre murmured as he leaned just enough around the corner to have a good line of sight.

"Right. I'll take care of it," Daniel said as he fastened the last buttons on the coat, which fit him very awkwardly. Nevertheless (Maurice thought) there was something very noble about his confidence, which he knew only _seemed_ to fit as awkwardly as the uniform did.

As he and Alexandre dragged the body back down the hall and into one of those forgivingly dark side corridors, he heard Daniel greeting the guards with some exaggerated tale of woe, the loss of his possessions – some sort of embarrassing, humorous thing that had in all likelihood actually happened to the poor man at some point. It was only Feuilly's questioning eyes, waiting on the next directions, that kept the mix of fear and readiness from turning into total fear for his friend. Maurice was about to turn and exit the hallway when he heard heavy footsteps in the hall and dragged Alexandre further back by the jacket sleeve. A very familiar pair of boots passed by, carrying inside them a very familiar ox by the very familiar name of Pilon.

He didn't pass far, but stopped only a few cells down from the one opposite their corridor and leaned up against its bars with an obscenely satisfied grin on his face. "Hey, kid, remember when I said it was your lucky day?"

"Not this _again_," groaned an _equally_ familiar voice from within the cell. It had to be Grantaire.

"Oh, yes."

"That's him," Maurice whispered, forcing himself to overcome the chill running down his spine.

"Let's go for it," Alexandre whispered back. Just behind the calm veneer, Joly could see that h is face was taut with concentration. He would have given anything to know they were going to get Grantaire out safely, and a great deal more to know that Daniel would be all right too, but all the same he would happily set aside a large piece of whatever-he-was-dealing-in to know what was going through Feuilly's head right now.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

Feuilly's head was currently a veritable minefield of thoughts.

In between the keeping-track-of-friends'-names and the keeping-track-of-the-plan-of-La-Force and the keeping-track-of-everything-else (because what else was a fanmaker who knew far more of the world than he ought to good for?), Alexandre was also keenly focused on the complicated task of keeping-their-necks-safe. (He was _not_ used to his given name at all. No one had called him by it since he had first started his apprenticeship and the fellows he boarded with gleefully reverted to the _truly_ inventive cognomen of Feuilly. Fan-boy, essentially. But here he was digressing when he ought to be paying attention to the scene at hand.)

He had thought Pilon a towering bull of a man before, but here, in his natural habitat, he seemed even more impressive an opponent. To Alexandre's mind his fists, and the weapon he must surely be carrying – likely a knife, given the streetwise way he was walking – presented the single greatest danger before them. Grantaire – Perceval? – however, seemed to be bearing up well, if wearily, under the pressure."This palaver isn't going to change my story, mouchard. I don't know who they were and that's the end of it," he said stubbornly.

"I think I'm the one who'll decide what's the end of it," Pilon said coldly, unaware of Jol- _Maurice_ stealing up behind him. Alexandre edged out of the hallway quietly, following behind.

Grantaire's eyes panned across them, but his bruised face thankfully betrayed nothing to the man in front of him. "...oh aye? Your knife getting twitchy, is it?" Yes, a knife then. Alexandre hoped that Maurice had made note of this as well.

"Perhaps," Pilon snarled, unable to conceal how much he obviously liked this idea. Feuilly felt his dislike of the man deepening further and further. Pushing his anger back, he looked over to Joly, who gave a decisive nod.

Within the space of a minute, Pilon was pinned flat on the floor and Grantaire was looking on in complete disbelief. "Monsieur, if you value your life, you will keep your mouth _firmly_ shut," Maurice announced in quiet and firm tones, leveling the barrel of Daniel's pistol at Pilon's face. The spy's face spelled absolute fury, but he seemed to place a high enough value on his own skin not to move. Alexandre took the opportunity to relieve him of the knife tucked into his trouser pocket.

"_Harlequin?_" Perceval said quietly, eyes wide.

Maurice – Harlequin – chuckled a little. "Scaramouche, did you think we were going to let you hang?"

"...The thought crossed my mind a couple of times," Scaramouche admitted with a wheeze. Despite his attitude smacking more of 'Capital R' than anything else, Alexandre suddenly couldn't see him as any less than Papa Scaramouche, albeit one whose grandeur had slipped considerably. He closed his fingers more completely around the knife handle, wondering how much innocent blood it had tasted.

"Give him the key," Harlequin said coldly, turning back to Pilon and jerking his head toward Alexandre.

"I'm not going to –" Pilon began. Alexandre cut him off by pressing the knife blade uncomfortably close to his neck. Pilon paused to consider his options and slowly handed over the key he had been concealing. Feuilly took it and opened the door to Scaramouche's cell with little trouble. There he was, leaning up against the bars with a pained and bewildered look that made Alexandre furious with Pilon for…whatever he had done.

"Pedrolino's distracting the guards," Harlequin said by way of explanation without taking his eyes or his pistol off Pilon. "Can you walk?"

"…I can try." Scaramouche looked as if he were far too touched to bother with any suicide plans. It was a relief. What was _not _a relief was the way in which he tried and failed to stand, collapsing onto the floor in a fit of wheezing breaths.

"Here, I'll help carry you out," Alexandre said, bending down to help him up and giving a jerk of his head toward Pilon. "Harlequin, what're we doing with _him_?"

"Lock him in here, of course," Harlequin said, ignoring the looks of hatred passing back and forth between Scaramouche and Pilon. ". Let Scaramouche sit down for a bit so you can tie him up while I keep the gun on him."

Scaramouche accepted Feuilly's assistance onto the cell's sturdy bench with a soft, grateful smile. "Thank you, Pan Twardowski." Alexandre broke into a wide grin; how could he not? He had no idea how Scaramouche could have known, but then that was the trick of Scaramouche, to know odd things no one else did. Monsieur Twardowski, Wizard of Krakow, or else simply the cleverest man in all Poland. Owner of the mirror that predicted Bonaparte's Russian downfall, if legend was to be believed, and the only man quick enough to bargain with the Devil and win. If he had to have a new name, he could have done _m__uch_ worse.

Pan Twardowski caught the knapsack Harlequin tossed to him neatly and tied Pilon's ropes with equal ease before starting to drag him backwards into the cell. "Ugh, does the government feed you bricks for breakfast?" he said as he struggled to pull the spy's bulk over the raised threshold (a proceeding that happily seemed to be quite painful for said spy). Pilon merely scowled back.

Once the spy had been safely stowed in the darkest corner of the cell, Harlequin handed Twardowski the gun before proceeding to chloroform and gag the offending hulk of a traitor. "_Dieu_, he is an annoying man," Scaramouche commented as Pilon finally stopped struggling and fell unconscious. "…Harlequin, you are magic after all, eh?"

"Maybe," Harlequin said grimly, worry flickering under the surface of his eyes. "We haven't pulled this off yet - we still have to go disentangle poor Pedrolino from the guard's uniform he's donned."

Scaramouche began to lever himself up off the bench with a groan. "...well... perhaps he should... keep it on. Look more natural, a guard seeing a few philanthropistic gentlemen around the prison."

Pan Twardowski caught Scaramouche under the elbow and shoulder to support his faltering step. "You think so?" he said, eyes flickering between Scaramouche and Harlequin for confirmation (he was, after all, the newcomer to this strange quartet). "We'd planned to split up, him to go get Pedrolino and me to help you out of here."

"Heaven forbid I call a change of plans. That - particularly the part where I get out of here - sounds quite brilliant," Scaramouche said.

"All right," Harlequin nodded, "we'll stick to that, then." He locked the cell behind them, pocketed the key, and stole off quietly to rescue Pedrolino.

Pan Twardowski and Pedrolino looked at each other in the low torchlight remaining. "Well…let's be going," Twardowski said quietly, feeling the dynamics between them starting to slip further toward merely Feuilly and Grantaire in a dangerous hallway they didn't quite know their way out of.

"You didn't have to do that, you know," Grantaire said suddenly, eternities later, as they crouched in the darkness beyond the walls of La Force in wait for Pedrolino and Harlequin to reappear.

"We couldn't just let you die," Feuilly answered him, sensibly, the enormity of all they had just accomplished beginning to wash over him a little. "It's nothing, really," he continued in an effort to keep himself on top of things.

"Hell it isn't," Grantaire said with a small groan as one of his injuries twinged. "Didn't think anyone would come for _me_."

"But here we are," came a familiar, grinning, relieved voice that made its source evident as Daniel tumbled out into the freer air of the Paris streets, followed closely by Maurice. "You two all right?"

"As well as can be expected," Grantaire said with an attempt to grin ironically.

"Let's just get _home_," Maurice said quietly, all the Harlequin drained out of him.

"Lovely idea." Perceval hoisted himself back up onto Alexandre's shoulder. "Lovely."

Alexandre found he had to agree.


	12. Not The Watchfulness Of A Spy

**A/N - One of a few chapters in which I really must tip my hat to the gorgeous storytellers for inspiration on how to handle R's alcohol adiction. (Read her 'Worth of a Man'. Do it. Now.) We do not own Les Miserables, The Rights of Men, The Flying Doctor, Socrates' plays or Lamartine's poetry.**

Stone - you, number twenty-two from the corner. Yes, I'm talking to you, M'sieur. You with the green head and that tiny little bit of moss. Pay attention. This is important, and I think - well _dieu_, even Apollo thinks it's important so maybe you'll do me the very smallest favour and listen to old cracked Papa Scaramouche, eh?

Not that he's much of a character to pay heed to, my little friends, M. Stone and M. Stone and Mlle Stone, and Mme Stone and the little enfant stones near the bottom. No, didn't you hear? He's practically a criminal, which is why, quite frankly, he is currently in this prison cell and talking to you. Not that you can hear him because he - or I - or Papa Scaramouche - or, if we say it very softly and make sure the Mouchards can't hear us... _Grantaire_. The Drunk. The Unwanted Man. The Very Bad Friend and Coward Who Doesn't Do Anything Right. The Stubborn Idiot Who Keeps His Mouth Shut.

That one.

All right then, listen here. Did you know that - according to the idols of Apollo himself - _The law is an expression of the will of the community. All citizens have a right to concur, either personally or by their representatives, in its formation._ Except if you're a drunkard whom no one wants, then you have to shut up and be quiet - or preferably just go jump in the Seinne, eh? Shh. I'm still talking, mes enfants. Wait until Papa has finished. _It should be the same to all, whether it protects or punishes; and all being equal in its sight, are equally eligible to all honors, places, and employments, according to their different abilities, without any other distinctions than that created by their virtues and talents._ Again, except if they are - as I said before - drunks. That, mes enfant stones, is from the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizens, eh? By the Grand and Glorious Third Estate Which Didn't Last All That Long Really, But Let's Not Say Anything As It Might Annoy Someone.

My ribs hurt. Eh? Dieu, do my ribs hurt.

Oh, you want something different to politics? Well I can't argue with you, though - of course - Apollo probably could. Have you ever met Apollo? Godlet in training. Statue. Glorious... glorious statue... '_Serves me right; I trapped myself and there's no way out. The weather in my future looks threatening, and if there's a storm I'm afraid I'll feel a rain of blows on my back. Or else they'll brand me across the shoulders with a whip - not exactly the brand of medicine any doctor ever prescribed. Yes, I'm in trouble. But why give up when we've come this far? Let's go the limit. I can still make a bid for freedom and prove that Sganerelle is the king of swindlers..._Except we'll just stay here instead because, my dears? Whatever does M. Moliere know? The Flying Doctor. Sganerelle - almost Scaramouche. Almost a flying doctor myself, enfants... Except not one who'll be flying, just one...

Poetry, perhaps. _Yet my soul, unmoved_ by _this pleasant view, Feels neither charmed with it nor comforted_... No offense, mon amis... charming stones... beloved enfants... _I see the earth as wandering spirits do: The sun of the living never warms the dead. Vainly from hill to hill, look where I may, From south to north, from dawn to dusk, I stare; I scan the whole of the vast realm, and say: 'There is no happiness for me anywhere.'_ Apollo hates Lamartine. Maybe he'd agree, though? Isolation, that poem is, you know. Kind of sad.

I'll take both parts of a play for you. The sentry first, and then Creon. The sentry was a worthless man, you know. Creon was a king. The Sentry says _Please, may I say a word or two, or just turn and go?_ Creon, then - _Can't you tell? Everything you say offends me._ Yes, you fool, you should be able to tell. Couldn't you just tell from the way he sneers at you? _Where does it hurt you, in the ears or in the heart?_ asks the Sentry, being too much of a fool to leave. Creon replies, oh godly man, _And who are you to pinpoint my displeasure?_ The Sentry replies, _The culprit grates on your feelings, I just annoy your ears..._ Again, too much of a fool. Such a fool, a born fool - a blind fool. A fool who is, frankly, better off dead. So Creon says _Still talking? You talk too much! A born nuisance...  
_  
Isn't that the truth?

Rocks?

Enfants?

My ribs hurt.

And God in heaven... I want a drink.

Yet, not two hours later he was being let quietly into Maurice Joly's house by Harlequin and Pedrolino and their new friend Pan Twardowski. Leaning, perhaps a tad heavily on both Pedrolino and Pan Twardowski because... dieu... at least twice in their short and ... unpleasant relationship inside the familiar confines of the prison cell, M. Pilon had broken things. Things he could feel grating as he tried to move. Things that sent white flashes behind his eyes and made him gasp for breath, even when both Pe... Daniel?

Can I think of you as Daniel again, ami? Will it hurt anyone?

Tried so hard.

Daniel.

Dieu, Daniel, I tried so hard to forget you all. Tried just to remember the names... only wanted to remember masks and names... Daniel, ami you're hurting... my arm... ami...

_Harlequin, Pedrolino. Harlequin. Pedrolino. Harlequin. Harlequin_.If he could only remember the names and the masks, he'd thought - hoped - prayed that even when M. Pilon brought out his shiny silver knife and started slicing things... started removing things and poking into skin and perhaps breaking other things really slowly... all he'd say if - dieu dammit, Grantaire are you that proud? When. When he broke and cracked before the hangman could steal him... all he would say would be three names. Scaramouche - the captain. Harlequin - the lieutenant. Pedrolino - the strong brave man.

He'd hoped so hard.

Pan Tw - Ale - Feu - names jumbled in his head as he struggled for the right one, tried and failed and grasped and pulled and pushed and finally remembered that he wasn't on first name basis with any of them so t'was polite, yes it really was, to call him _Feuilly_. Good name, that. Feuilly, was kindly letting him down onto a couch just a little too slow, but he wasn't complaining. Maybe a little. Maybe a groan now... so tired and god - Feuilly - that _hurts_.

L'aigle was off in the kitchen and Scara... Per... the... man Grantaire... yes, Grantaire could hear cups clattering and wondered if it had really only been a few days since he had last been here with them... drinking coffee. Maybe. Perhaps he had dreamed everything from the beginning to the end. His ribs could be boxing... couldn't they? Maybe they'd all be really nice and let him have something to drink now. His hands were shaking again. The ribs had been so good at distracting him from that... so veryvery good and all the reciting and... but he wanted... needed... had to have...

Joly sank into the sofa next to his feet, white as a sheet and shaking slightly. He looked, in Grantaire's admittedly bleary eyes... dieu... damned... _awful_. L'aigle sat next to him, heavy and tired, after putting a pot of something on the table. The something was probably coffee, but damned if Grantaire could smell anything through his nose. Which was broken. Yes... broken by...

They'd really...

He wasn't going to...

He stopped and looked at all three of them and though clearly and distinctly... _they came for me_. "That... was... spectacular..." God. Thank you. Thank you. You _came_.

"We... actually did it..." Feuilly was the only one left standing and looking sane... was that grin on his face sane? Could it be after all that?

Poor Harlequin - Joly, _Joly_... looked worse than dead, nodding only a very little as L'aigle tried to rub the tension out of his shoulders. "...nnn... yeah..."

"And I didn't _break_ anything," L'aigle added, in slightly more cheerful tones.

Well, come on Scaramouche. This is your party. They _came_ for you after you put them all in danger, all the masks and names and people that you say you care about. They _came_ for you. Hadn't you better say something? Use that tongue that M. Pillon hated so much. He tried to sit up and stopped with a gasp that almost turned into a sob... _dieu dieu dieu that hurts that hurts... oh dieu that hurts..._ "I... " he started again, lying still and breathing very slowly. "have... to say, I am sorry I got you all into that. I wasn't thinking. They were very interested as to whom you might all be... but they din't find out." I swear, they never would have, I _promise_.

Joly sat up a little and took notice, his brow furrowed in what Grantaire first thought was a skeptical look, a look as if to say 'surely Grantaire Did Not Keep All Our Secrets' a look that called him a coward and a liar... a look that... but no... "Hell." No. It wasn't _that..._ "what'd he do to you?" It was concern.

For me? You've done enough, my poor friend. "...nothing too serious. Jus'... a few bruises."

Now all three were looking at him. L'aigle had his eyebrows raised in some disbelief, while Feuilly had his lips pursed up as though he'd eaten something nasty and Joly was taking off his shirt and dissecting him... all with his eyes.

"Doesn't look like a few bruises t'me," Feuilly sad, matter-of-factly and please and thank you, and what exactly is Papa Scaramouche going to do about his ribs?

Joly agreed. "I think you need a doctor."

"Much..." and he felt his face contorting of it's own accord into a grimace. "...as I'd like to argue... I think you may be right." And dieu knows we can't get a qualified professional in here... this... looks like interrogation work. "...you want to have a shot, Joly?" He smiled as best he could, only wincing a little as it pulled on his torn mouth.

It must be a truly awful sight, as Joly could only manage a very tiny weak smile back, and just said, "I can try. I wouldn't want to make anything worse."

Ha. Ha ha. Ha, my dear _dear_ Harlequin. You _couldn't. _He did enough... you know... that... you just _couldn't_ make it worse. Kill me if you like, even that wouldn't make it worse. Might... thank you for it. Damn... Grantaire tried and almost failed to unbutton his shirt, the buttons slipping through his fingers, turning stiff and unwieldy... so very hard not to jab or poke at the bruised and broken mess beneath... "Here... have a look." Sorry. Looks pretty bad, I'd imagine.

He heard soft, growling, swearing sort of noises come from both Feuilly and L'aigle as he opened his shirt front. Strange... wasn't it? Maybe?

"That's some pretty major haemhorraging..." Joly was leaning over him, looking dangerously like he might decide to collapse on top of him at any moment. "Does that hurt?" A finger gently prodded his side and produced a symphony of pain.

He couldn't help sucking in a sharp breath and then gritting his teeth against even more pain as that jarred his ribcage. "...yeah... a bit..."

At this, Joly hauled himself to his feet, _oh, thank you... thank you... thank you..._ and off the couch so that there was more room for Grantaire to relax and stretch out. "I don't think we can move you." He gave a wave to Daniel, shooing him away from his end of the couch as well. "You're going to have to stay lying down on the couch."

"'m... not arguing," he would have sighed in relief if that wouldn't hurt so bad. "Hurts to move."

"All right." Joly's hands shook like leaves on the branches of an old, and winter-stricken tree, and he swayed back and forth in a way that really was not, ami, and I'm meaning this in the most respectful manner... not at _all_ conducive to filling me with great faith in your abilities to do this without hurting me. And yet somehow he managed to draw back the shirt carefully enough to have a look at the injuries closer - without bumping or knocking or - Dieu forbid - leaning on anything. "I think most of them are broken. You're lucky not to have a punctured lung."

"Well..." he couldn't summon much concern over it, feeling like he was floating in suspension between pain and sleep and couch and prison. "He was a very insistent man."

Feuilly snorted, and said something pithy and typical that sounded like "Looks more like a bully to me..." and Grantaire wondered why he could hear knocking. Was that his heart? His head? ...The door? It was the door... the police? Was it Pilon? He felt a rush of panic, and could do little more than watch as L'aigle got up to answer.


	13. To Defend and Reward Our Friends

_Damn_ women. Actually – just damn women who distracted friends when one wanted to play dominoes. Damn friends who wouldn't leave their mistresses alone when one was trying to have fun, come to think of it. You know what? Just damn friends in general.

"And damn me," Dominic Bahorel muttered, kicking the mud off of his boots outside L'Aigle and Jolllly's place. Between Luc and Luc's girlfriend and the guilt weighing on his chest, he hadn't seen any other choice that he had other than to come apologize. Maybe it could do a little belated good.

It was L'Aigle who answered the door. "...hey...um…" Dom tried awkwardly before sighing.  
"Look, I'm sorry about earlier. I really am."

"Come in. Someone else you might be wanting to apologise to," L'Aigle said gruffly.

"All right." Who was he referring to? Joly, he supposed, but he wasn't sure. L'Aigle closed the door behind them and showed him into the living room with a damned unusually cold air. Dom's eyes crossed the room before he did – Feuilly _again_, for some unknown reason, and Joly looking like he was going to pass out where he sat, and –

Grantaire.

"_Damn_," Bahorel said quietly.

Grantaire froze at the sound and then lifted his head a little. He looked putain _awful_. "…oh. Hello."

"What…" Whatever had happened, he was rather annoyed to have missed it. "What happened to _you_?"

"Oh, a little jaunt with a government man who didn't like being outed as a spy," Grantaire said tensely. "Nothing special."

Dominic bit his tongue before swallowing his pride. "Grantaire, I'm sorry."

Grantaire blinked a bit in confusion. "…._You're_ sorry? I thought you were mad at _me_!"

"Yeah, and I shouldn't 'a been," Dom said. There, he'd said it, did he have to say it again? Made an awful ass of myself, ami, and no mistake.

"Oh," Grantaire said, suddenly brightening up. "Oh, that's all right."

"All _right_? Look what you've got yourself into!" Bahorel couldn't believe Grantaire was just…forgiving him. Then again, there were a lot of things he'd found hard to believe about Grantaire.

Grantaire chuckled breathily and then grabbed at his ribs in pain. "Ah, heh…dear _dieu_ please don't make me laugh."

"Sorry, but how is that _funny_?" Dom demanded, noticing the worried look on Joly's face. Guess some things were back to normal, at least for now.

"I guess I'm not used to everyone being so very concerned," Grantaire said, grinning.

"Yeah, well, you kind of look like you got hit by a train," Dom said, walking over and leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

"I kind of feel like I got hit by a man built like a putain _ox_ is what I feel like," GrandR said, half-laughing. Dom had no idea where his old ami had suddenly come from, but he wasn't going to complain.

"I can go and give it back to him if you like. Jus' say the word."

Grantaire smiled warmly around his swelling face. "Thanks, ami."

"Nothin' of it," Dom grinned back.

"There has to be something that we can do. It looks putain _awful_," L'Aigle was saying worriedly, rubbing his twin's slumping shoulders.

"We can't get a real doctor, I suppose he's a wanted man now...dieu, I suppose we're _all_ wanted men if the rat got a decent look at us..." Joly babbled on tiredly.

"...we _did_ have masks on," L'Aigle said. "I think we'll be all right. Doesn't seem he's got any names by the look of Scaramouche."

"Right. Right. I'm worrying too much."

Grantaire returned Bahorel's grin and extended a battered hand to him. Dom shook it as gently as he could, given his friend's injuries. "This is going to play havoc with my boxing," R commented, settling back and closing his eyes with a grimace of pain.

"...you're all in, cher," L'Aigle said quietly to Joly. "Maybe we could... send for Combeferre."

"We're going to let Combeferre in on this?" Feuilly piped up for the first time, suspicious look drawn as ever across his face.

"We don't have to…" Joly said, sheet-white and getting worse. Might be R wasn't the only one needed the doctor, oui?

"...exactly how many people are we going to _tell_?" Grantaire groaned, closing his eyes tighter.

"...well, we could tell Combeferre that Scaramouche here just got hurt in a fight," L'Aigle said. "He's already convinced Enjolras tried to drive him to his..." He trailed off with an awkward look on his face, and Dominic realized Grantaire must not have heard any of this. Joly had a similar awkward look stretched across his face and R looked deadly embarrassed, but Feuilly didn't seem to notice, commenting, "That could work."

"He'll probably be really glad to see you're alive," Dom helped.

"Brilliant. Glad to know it's public knowledge," Grantaire said, wincing.

L'Aigle looked around the room. "…right, well someone has to go out and fetch Combeferre."

"Oh, I'll do it," Dom grinned.

"All right," Joly said; his suspicion seeped through his taut face. "Try to be quick about it."

The Eagle looked even more suspicious of his intentions. "…play _nice_, Dominic."

Bahorel laughed. "Have you ever known me to do otherwise?" _And_ a hasty exit before anyone could answer that question was _definitely _in order. It was a damn good thing he already knew where Combeferre lived.

"Hello…Bahorel," Combeferre said when he finally came to the door. Granted, it was sort of late, but then Dominic had made sure to knock as loudly as he could. "What can I do for you?"

"Your medical talents are wanted," he said glibly.

"…I'll get my bag," Combeferre said, his eyebrows leaping up.

"Oh good. By the way, it's for Grantaire," he couldn't resist calling after Combeferre as he disappeared back into the hall. Dominic had every trust in Combeferre's abilities, which meant he was quite comfortable teasing the young doctor about R's injuries to see if he could get any sort of rise out of him.

"…is he all right?" Combeferre asked when he finally emerged, looking annoyed and worried.

Undoubtedly even further annoying to Combeferre, his ruffled composure only served to amuse Dominic. "Mhm...rather hard for me to tell, you know?" he said vaguely. "Not having had the bad sense - no offense to you, of course - to have set foot in a medical lecture hall."

"We can't all be as liberated as yourself, Bahorel," Combeferre glared. "Where is he?"

"Oh, he's at Joly's."

"Joly's?" Combeferre said, obviously surprised. "All right then."

"Said something about broken ribs and…" Dominic did not even bother trying to pronounce the following word correctly. "Haemhorraging, and he looks ghastly."

Combeferre went sheet white, nearly as bad as Jolllly had been. "_Damn_ it, Augustin," he muttered, and nearly walked into a street lamp in his distraction. _Sure,_ it was dam' serious, but Bahorel couldn't help but be further amused. And surely 'Ferre was _quite_ capable of fixing Grantaire up just fine.

"Anyone know what happened?" Combeferre asked quietly a few streets later.

"I showed up late to the party, as they say. Just stopped in, and they sent me right back out again for you," Dom shrugged.

"Right. How many people are there?" he said tensely.

"Er...just Joly, 'f course, and L'aigle and Feuilly. And Grantaire." Well of _course_ Grantaire, he wasn't going to just jump up and walk away, was he?

"…fine," Combeferre answered, looking relieved. Dom thought the whole thing was just odd, until he realized his friend must have been dreading that Enjolras would be there. Funny thought, but that _would_ be a mess if he showed up now, wouldn't it?

"Hey, Combeferre, the turn's back here," he yelled down the street at the corner next to Joly's place. "Thoughts carrying you away?"

"…oh…yes, yes…of course." Combeferre hurried back up and they went up to the door together.

Dom could only hope what was behind it was the same scene he had left.


	14. The House of a Doctor of Theology

**A/N: We are, I believe, about a little less than half way through Arc Four. It has no prison scenes at all. Now won't that be different? Hope you are all still enjoying it, and do drop us a line if you are - or if you're not!**

Of course he had walked on too far, dieu dammit. He _knew_ where Maurice Joly lived. He'd been summoned enough times in their acquaintance over this or that illness to know very well where Maurice Joly lived, and thank you so much for your completely unnecessary levity, Bahorel. Dieu, I thought Grantaire was you friend. Does the man actually have any friends? Or has he inebriated himself out of the fashion?

Eugene had been looking over some note on the anatomy of the hand when Bahorel had hammered on his door and issued the startling summons, and Eugene Combeferre was not ashamed or surprised that not only did he not care that he was leaving important study uncompleted, but right now he could not recall even what page of what book he had been studying. Because in all honesty the only thing in his head at the moment - despite the fact that everyone appeared to be of the opinion that his head was stuffed too full with dry facts and dead people (thank you so much for that colourful assassination of the time-honoured study of medicine, Bahorel) to leave any room for human feeling - was concern for one mildly annoying, very troublesome and extremely worrying drunkard. Dieu only knew what he could possibly say to Enjolras if Grantaire really had found some melodramatic way to make his - if unintentional - orders a reality.

Lesgle opened the door which Bahorel had been helpfully hammering on, and Eugene stepped inside with a briskness that he did not sincerely had a wash of concern over his face, the like of which Combeferre could only recall seeing before when the cheerfully unlucky paragon of the law books was fretting over some imaginary disease Joly had picked up. "Where is he?" Tell me it's not a hanging, or a shooting, or long classical quotations carved into his arms, _please_.

A tired and fretful looking Joly appeared and waved them all towards his living room with the air of a man who was conducting an eternal piece of music and wished very much to stop before his arms fell out of their sockets - not that this was medically probable by any stretch of even the most outlandish imagination. Before Joly could start in with a list of what _he_ thought might be ailing Grantaire, Combeferre crossed to the living room quickly, hearing Lesgle close the door, presumably behind Bahorel.

The living room had the appearance of a morgue, something of that deathly chilled hush laying over the air which in Combeferre's experience came from cold cellar rooms with the dead laid out on a slab, reeking of embalming fluid and the softer, less noticeable aroma of memories and grief. Feuilly was stood - a surprising person to be present, considering his and Grantaire's mutual distaste for each other's company - in one corner looking grim and uncomfortable, while a thankfully live Grantaire was sprawled in a typically ungainly fashion across the couch.

"...all right, what happened?" But he was already looking Grantaire over, seeing the obvious marks of a beating.

There was a short silence, and several glances were exchanged, Feuilly to Joly, who appeared to be half-asleep and unnaturally pale, even for him - Feuilly to Lesgle and then a quick glance from Lesgle to Joly before finally it seemed to be decided that Lesgle would be the spokesperson for the bizarre trio.

"Right..." he said uncertainly. "Uh... he hasn't told us much, but Feuilly found him outside a bar in the Montparnasse district all smashed up and brought him here."

Feuilly? Montparnasse district? From Combeferre's own interactions with Alexandre Feuilly, he would certainly not have expected him to frequent such a shabby and dangerous area of the city. Feuilly might perhaps have belonged to the Noble Poor as Augustin sometimes rather dangerously labelled them, but he was a strictly honest and hard-working man who seemed to practically repel even the very thought of anything untoward considering the possibility of happening in his vicinity. It was a talent which Combeferre would have liked to quantify and attempt to replicate.

At his questioning look, Feuilly nodded slightly. "I figured this was closest. Must've got himself in an awful fight."

That was not quite what I was trying to ask, Feuilly. He turned back to Grantaire and took a closer look at the bared torso. "Certainly looks like... dear _god_..." It was not just a beating that had happened to GrandR, but a terribly vicious beating, broken ribs... alors... so many. The 6th to 10th ribs on both sides - _both - _cracked, bruised... probably at the least fractured. That was an enormous amount of pain for the homme to be in.

Grantaire moved his head slightly, his torn and bruised and bloodied face twisting into an uglier than usual grimace of a smile. "Never been compared to the good lord before, Combeferre... maybe you need new glasses?"

Bahorel gave a snort in the background, oh ha ha ha that is so hilarious. Combeferre frowned. Never, never, never was the suffering of a human being amusing. Never. He found such efforts at levity by the patient delusional, and any attempt at laughter from those around him - quite frankly in the very worst of taste.

"Glad to see you're retained your sense of humour, GrandR," being, as it were, poorly timed and badly thought out as usual. "Care to tell me what happened to you?" He began gently running his fingers over Grantaire's ribs, feeling for the breaks that he had a terrible terrible certainty were bound to be in every single one of them.

The prone man gave a hiss of pain. "...three against one. Thought I owed them money, I think." He hissed again, face contracting and losing much of his assumed bravado.

Dieu be praised. He almost shook his head at his own foolishness for overreacting at Augustin's poorly phrased words at the man. Nothing to do with Enjolras, nothing to do with the idea planted in his unfortunately pickled brain that he should remove himself from the world. Simply the fact of a debt gone unpaid - something which was, he thought ruefully, not exactly hard to believe about GrandR. "Mmm. Certainly did plenty of damage." Not that this extent of sheer violence was ever to be condoned. And though Grantaire was a nuisance and probably even a security risk to the Cause... perhaps the best was to describe him was as _their_ nuisance. And a human nuisance at that, and not one he ever had posessed any desire to see harmed.

Grantaire grimaced as he kept prodding, but said nothing except the incredibly surprising, "...is Maurice all right?"

"'m _fine_," was the even more surprising reply from the kitchen - where Joly appeared to have disappeared to. Fine. _Maurice?_ Since when were Grantaire and Joly frindly enough to be on first name terms? Grantaire was ever looking in concern to Feuilly and Lesgle, who appeared to be returning them with some interest.

What... _was_ going on here? Combeferre raised an eyebrow at Bahorel, who appeared to e somewhat excluded from the communing going on and he simply shrugged back as though to say he was equally - if not _more_ confused. Well. No time for this, he had been called here to perform a duty... and he would see it out to the best of his ability.  
Combeferre placed a hand on Grantaire's shoulder.

"Take a deep breath." He knew what he was asking and how much it would hurt, and was not surprised when Grantaire grimaced and took a very shallow breath in response. "_Deep_ breath."

Another shallow expansion of the ribcage. Grantaire's face twisted a little, and he gasped. "I _can't_."

"You must." Combeferre clenched his right hand into a fist, feeling each nail bite into the skin one at a time, watching Grantaire's chest and fighting the urge to bite his lip. That was a nervous habit of Joly's which he did not intend to contract.

Again, rather manfully, Grantaire expanded his ribcage and gave a hollow, terrible groan. "It _hurts_."

I _know_ it hurts. Of _course_ it hurts. You had some moneylenders break eight of your bloody ribs, you wine-soaked fool. Do you think I'm standing here telling you to breathe for my own enjoyment? Dear dieu, Grantaire. I am not a putain sadist!

Joly picked that moment to exclaim _oh_ so helpfully from the kitchen, "Don't _kill_ yourself breathing, dieu!" It was so utterly out of character, that Lesgle had crossed the room and disappeared into the kitchen himself before Combeferre could quite process the enormity of what Maurice Joly - a professed medical student - had just said.

Oh for the dear and blessed and priet-professed love of the good Lord Almighty... "If he doesn't start _breathing_, then he's going to get complications." Which you would know if you paid as much attention to your studies as you purport to. "Come on, Grantaire," he added more kindly to the homme - that... was really a lot more pain than one could expect any man to suffer lightly. "this is what happens when you go playing in the Montparnasse, eh?" And borrowing money you don't intend to repay, but I'll leave that off.

Grantaire made no reply, muscles in his jaw jumping as he expanded his chest with a real, deep, honest breath of air. A contraction of pain washed over his face, but he made no complaint, no wine-soaked comment, just let the breath out again as Bahorel and Feuilly watched, both wearing expressions of deep concern.

Good man. "This is going to hurt," he ran his fingers over the broken ribs very gently. "I have to find out if any of them are puncturing your organs."

With impressive composure, Grantaire merely raised an eyebrow. "So it's going to hurt _more_?"

Yes. He nodded, not relishing the thought.

"Fine." A small shrug, hampered and cut short rather abruptly.

Then began the slow and torturous process of feeling long the bones several times each, very slowly to ensure that not one was poking into the stomach or lungs or intestines or anything else they shouldn't be. At first Grantaire bore up under the new attack of pain, but that unfortunately didn't last long. First he groaned... then he began to yelp, short sharp barks of noise which tore at Combeferre and did little to calm his nerves.

And then he was begging. GrandR. Begging. Begging _Combeferre_ not to hurt him.

"Combeferre... stop... _please_..." and dieu dammit, he was nearly in tears. Dear _dieu_ strike him dumb for just a few minutes, let me just _finish_ this...

"Grantaire, just lie still and let me finish." His voice was testy, sharp with worry and anger and irritation. Worry - that maybe he might find something severely damaged and not be able to fix it. Anger - at whoever did this terrible thing and at himself for putting Grantaire through more pain than he was already in...irritation - that Grantaire couldn't just inderstand that he was only trying to _help_.

"..._stop_..." Grantaire's eyes were wide and red, shifting from one side of the room to the other, and he was beginning to thrash about, arms flailing and head tossing back and forth. "Please just _stop_. I don't know _who_they are."

What? He looked up quickly to see if anyone else had made any sense out of that, and merely saw a look of dawning fury strangely mixed with admiration of all things. There were bits and pieces of something here that were beginning to ring together like bells in Combeferre's mind, but he had no time to try to put it all together.

It must just be the pain talking. "...I tell you again, this is _necessary_, Grantaire. Do you _want _to puncture your lungs and die?"

Not that it was any use trying to explain it to the man. Grantaire was hysterical with pain, weeping as he continued examining the ribs, one by one, slow and methodical and hating every minute of it. Grantaire - _dieu_ - I'm sorry. I am very sorry.


	15. Illness Renders the Head Weak

"Cher?" Joly heard through a haze. Somebody else in the kitchen who sounded vaguely like Daniel. "Wha's it?" he said, not lifting his head out of his hands. The table shifted under someone's weight and a large hand coming out of the darkness ruffled his hair very gently.

"My head feels like it's about to burst," Maurice whispered.

"…it's probably the coffee." Daniel continued to trace very large circles over what felt like the parietal bone – yes, damn it, the coffee. Worse than liquor, to all appearances.

"'M never touching the stuff again," he said. "Even my _teeth_ hurt."

"Well…it got the job done," Daniel said quietly.

"True. True." He found himself giggling weakly and felt a sudden dizzy rush that made him bury his head further in his hands. He could hear muffled yelps from the living room, where Grantaire was. What awful pain he must be in…

"Perhaps you should go to bed, cher," Daniel said.

"Can I? Please?" It was the sweetest thought in the world. Just…_bed_, and silence, and warmth, and the slight hope that this really wasn't serious and he might really recover instead of spiraling downwards forever like he felt he was doing even n…

Daniel caught Maurice's head as it slid from his hands and supported him by the shoulder. "Show me the man who says you can't."

"Thank you..." he said weakly, pulling himself up.

"...I tell you again, this is _necessary_, Grantaire. Do you _want_ to puncture your lungs and die?" Combeferre was saying snappishly as Maurice slunk back into the living room. Dominic and…god what was his name, Alexandre…were looking on in some concern and Grantaire was _crying_ from the pain… "Joly, come hold him down will you?" Combeferre said as he saw him enter. "I'm only halfway through and he _will_ keep thrashing about."

Oh god do I _have_ to…it was hell enough getting him here, and now…can't I just _rest_, please…but Combeferre's frustrated look said Emphatically, No. Halfheartedly, Joly got down beside the couch and took hold of the arm poor Perceval couldn't help but keep moving.

"I wish he would shut up," Combeferre muttered over the sound of Grantaire pleading hysterically to be let go, just make it stop, he didn't know _anything_ about _anyone_…

"_Maurice_," he heard Daniel say behind him, probably frowning. "You should be in bed. Let me do that." He turned his head to apologize and found himself taking hold of something being passed to him and drinking a little without thinking and…

The rush hit his brain before the bitter taste even registered on his tongue. Why was he drinking coffee? Why had Daniel even handed it to him? Why was he still drinking it even as he was thinking, or trying to think, or trying to talk, or… "Daniel, I don't need it – I _don't_!" he said once his tongue caught up to his brain, putting the half-empty cup down on the coffee table.

"I'm _sorry_!" Daniel said, looking horrified at having let the force of recent habit get to him. Joly could almost see the automatic thought process of _sick joli - ridiculous task -needs coffee_ playing out behind his wrinkled brows.

"Well, it's not like the damage isn't done already. Here we go again, what is it this time, is that all this is?" And am I _really_ saying this out loud, cher, because I can't _tell_…Maurice's pounding head continued to complain, only now it was at far greater speeds, because he could _feel_ the blood rushing through it. Dieu, what am I anyway, just a machine for solving problems? Really?

"Would you _kindly_ attend, Joly?" Combeferre snapped.

Joly turned back sharply. "I can't say I'll do so _kindly_, but if you need me I can hardly turn you down you know."

Combeferre raised a distracted eyebrow but said nothing and, unfortunately, did not release him. "Just keep holding him still. I'm almost done."

The next few minutes alternately crawled and rushed as the room _spun_. The pain in Grantaire's wild eyes, Combeferre's accompanying grimace, the sloping-ever-more-steeply walls, they were all turning into one. "...none in his lungs, thank the bon dieu," Combeferre said finally. "Well, R... next time don't pick a fight with three men over a gambling debt, eh?"

Perceval, poor tortured Scaramouche, gave no answer. "You can let go now, Joly," Combeferre said dryly, upon which Harlequin realized he was still clinging. As Harlequin and Combeferre got up tiredly, Scaramouche finally reopened his eyes.

"Is it over?" he said weakly, looking up at Harlequin questioningly.

"Oui, Scaramouche, it's over, and Harlequin is going to _bed_."

"Oh, that's good," Scaramouche said softly as Harlequin walked out of the room and toward the bedroom door.

"…_Joly_!" _Slam_.

Unfortunately, Combeferre merely yanked the door back open and followed him in. "Is this some sort of sick _joke_, Joly?" he demanded. "Do you think it's _amusing_ to use their names when Scaramouche is going to _die_? And to compare him to _GrandR_?"

Maurice glared up at him from his pillow. "Let's get this straight. That _is_ Scaramouche. I _am_ Harlequin. Now get the hell out of my room."

"_That_ is never Scaramouche," Combeferre said stubbornly.

"You're not very sharp, are you?" Joly said, propping his head up on one hand.

"I beg your pardon?" Combeferre said angrily.

"I already had to explain this once today," Joly groaned. As smart as Combeferre generally was, shouldn't he be able to just go away and figure this out for himself? Feuilly had. "No, it was yesterday. _Today_ I had to go break him out of prison because some damn fool told him to erase himself from the planet, and he decided the best way to do that was to get himself arrested and hung."

"…but…it's _Grantaire_," Combeferre said.

"Yes. Yes, it is."

"And you." Combeferre gave him an insultingly incredulous look. "Really."

"I wouldn't imply that again in front of Daniel if I were you," Maurice sighed. "He already bruised Dominic's jaw for that."

"…_L'Aigle_?"

Take us seriously for once, would you? Just once? "When drunkards and paranoid student doctors scheme against prison guards - why not?"

Combeferre still didn't seem to get it. "And you're telling me you broke him out of prison today? That's tall, Joly."

"Oh, not me by myself, of course not," Maurice said irritably. "I had to take Daniel as a matter of course, and Feuilly was sharp enough to figure it all out without anyone telling him so he joined up too."

"...dear god," Combeferre said slowly, something beginning to add up behind his eyes. "You _really_... _you_ really..." He swallowed hard and shook his head. "Baise moi."

Well _good_, he understood at last. Not very quick on the uptake, all things considered. "Yes. Yes, we did," Joly said, burying his head in his pillow again. "Now will you let me _sleep_, I have been literally living on coffee for the last who the hell knows how long now and I was up all last night planning too."

He could feel the blood still pounding, swirling, rushing through his overworked brain, preventing him from comprehending anything either of them had just said. Just sleep. That's all he wanted now. Just to be able to sleep.


	16. A Fool, A Simpleton, A Blustering Booby

**A/N - Just a warning, dear readers... next few updates may be a little slow to compensate for the slight increase in our busy life schedules and slight decrease of productivity in Arc 4.**

He was rarely truly angry. Irritated, yes. Annoyed, why certainly - if one was not prepared to be annoyed sometimes, one would have to avoid altogether any interactions with Enjolras on a more personal and friendly level. But anger was a distraction from the important things in life which needed to be assessed and attended to. He had no time for anger and found worse than an unnecessary indulgence.

Except right now, with the sight of GranR's bashed ribs glaring him in the face, the man's tormented, irritating, heart-rending begging in his ears, the consciousness that he himself had tortured a wounded man through necessity to the point where he was reduced to begging, begging and begging over and over to be let alone, spared more pain - no, please m'sieur, please. All this was boiling in him like a primordial soup - if such things existed - something full of gasses and improbable proteins all stirred together and hit by lightning to become, in a moment of truly outstandingly unlikely metamorphosis - anger. The lightning was Joly's ridiculous behavior culminating in a flat, matter-of-fact and off-hand remark to Grantaire... Oui, Scaramouche... it's over. And Harlequin is going to bed.

Then he was angry. Angry enough to desert Grantaire without even binding his chest, to stride after Joly and even barge into his room without knocking. What had made him the most angry? The prod to his sore, guilty raw consciousness that the noble Scaramouche was sitting in possibly even on of the cells he had so bravely saved them from not more than a month ago and they'd not done a thing to try and help him in return? Worse, they did not even know if anyone was trying to help him. They were just turning a blind eye to the injustice towards a man who had risked himself over and over to save them, ignoring completely the ticking clock resounding it's hourly bells over his life. Do we shy away from the hangman's noose?

Or was it the flippancy of it all? The utter sheer revolting disrespect that fairly turned his stomach as he thought over it. Grantaire was a man, yes... but next to Scaramouche - he was little better than a craven animal. To compare the one with the other, the hero with the gambling drunk who was reaping the fruits of his dissolute living... was nothing short of callous Injustice and a raw conscience and the bloody great mess of tension Grantaire's cries had rubbed in his already smarting temper...

And Combeferre was really, truly, completely angry. Even more so when Joly not only refused to explain himself or apologise for what might - in the very very kindest of terms - have simply been a dreadful choice of words and a complete lack of any decency, but continued his little... dieu, Combeferre didn't even know what to call it... do you think this is funny, Joly? Think this is actually amusing? Well I'm sorry, I know most people think Combeferre doesn't have a sense of humor, dull old putain Combeferre, eh? But this... this is putain not funny.

Oh ha ha. Yes. Grantaire is Scaramouche and you're Harlequin, and I'm the putain father of Charles X.

And yet... even ... and yet as he stood there and argued with Joly - who was arguing back with a flare that Combeferre hadn't ever seen before... things were sparking in his brain. Little things. Clues and bits and pieces all together, sparking and firing off insistently. He tried to ignore them, even though it was usually the sign that he was close to coming to an important conclusion that would bind irrevocably disparate facts together once and for all.

Now was not the time.

He was in the middle of scoffing at Joly's ridiculous suggestion that he'd just broken Grantaire - supposedly The Scaramouche - out of prison, when everything clocked together. He barely even heard what Joly said in response, too busy trying to fight down a surge of nausea. You... bloody... ass... Eugene Combeferre!

The voice of Scaramouche, the dry wit so very similar to that of their own drunkard. Click. That strangely discordant dramatic air. Click. Grantaire and Joly being the only ones spared from the raid, and then only two rescuers in the prison... two who knew a great deal about Les Amis... two who knew far far too much... Click. The logical reason why M. Scaramouche would care so much about proving who the spy was. Click. The questions by Joly which sounded more like an interrogation... Click...

Grantaire's chest caved in with punches that looked too deliberate and pointed for a fight... Click ... I don't know who they are... CLICK...

"...dear god." he said softly. "You really... you really... baise moi." Really. Baise moi, for a fool and an ass. Baise moi for an unsympathetic patronising judgmental idiot. Dear dieu... the things he had said... not just to Joly, but to Grantaire when the man had just... had obviously survived...

"Yes. Yes, we did," Joly said in a wearily snappish tone. "Now will you let me sleep, I have been literally living on coffee for the last who the hell knows how long now and I was up all last night planning, too."

Coffee... over stimulated and dehydrated. Over-strained, too tired, and probably with a headache. Combeferre allowed the medical side of his brain to take over and guide him through the obvious logical solutions and procedures. He didn't want to think about this. No, mes amis, even Eugene Combeferre sometimes has moments when he doesn't want to think about something. This is one of them. Because in all honesty, he really doesn't want to think about how much of a complete idiot he has been, merci so very much.

And of course everyone else probably knew as well and were simply watching him act atrociously to Grantaire... he wondered for a moment how it was no one had yet kindly offered to rearrange his face. Perhaps since he had been ignorant and they had obviously been set on keeping him ignorant...

No. He did not want to think about it at all. Eugene crossed the room briskly and bent over Joly, feeling his forehead. Pale, shaking... eyes shadowed with black circles... "Mmm. You need a lot of water. And something to take the edge off the caffeine." When Joly made no demur, he looked through his satchel and found a small bottle of laudanum. Sydenham's. While he deplored the use of opiates in modern medicine, there were occasions when he could countenance the usage of a very small dosage for the greater good.

There was a water jug on the nightstand, and he poured a large glass and added a careful measure of laudanum to it. Pardon, Joly. I know it deadens the senses and dulls the mind, robbing man of that which makes him truly above the beasts of the earth... but you will find that it will make you feel somewhat better. And I believe that is the very least I can do, surely. "This will make you feel better." He said, passing the glass over.

Surprisingly, Joly did not unleash any of his newfound, shocking, and certainly deserved ire, but merely mumbled a strained, "Thanks," and downed the glass.

So you still trust me in that, at least, eh my friend? Combeferre contemplated for a moment, feeling a rush of awkwardness the like to which he hadn't felt since he'd been a raw youth of fourteen trying to argue with a professor and finding that all his arguments were based on presumption. He had sworn then to always let the facts lead him towards the future... hah. "...Joly..."

The smaller, younger medical student blinked up at him from a somewhat familiar position on the bed, for once neither complaining about his health nor having summoned or particularly wanted Combeferre's presence at his bedside. "What, Combeferre?"

At that moment, Eugene was struck by the simple, undeniable fact that Joly had grown a great deal older and more mature in a very short space of time - quite probably a deal older and more mature than he himself would ever get to be. He felt suddenly humbled and at a loss, and managed only a very simple, "I'm sorry."

"Oh." Joly sounded mildly surprised, as though the idea of an apology from Combeferre was something that had never even been expected. And, Eugene noted rather dryly, had indeed happened a paltry few times in their acquaintanceship. Perhaps... perhaps... it should have happened more often. "Thank you." Joly added somewhat sleepily. "Oh... don't tell Enjolras. He might have a fit of apoplexy on the spot."

"No, thank you," heavens, my friend. Why should the hero thank the surgeon who appears to be a good several weeks late with his ministrations? "And as much as I would enjoy watching his expression if he knew he allowed Grantaire to order him into a laundry bag... this secret is safe with me." Amusing? Definitely. Almost worth it? Almost certainly. Actually worth it? No.

"Hah... that would be enjoyable..." Joly grinned a little and then was asleep before his grin had time to mature properly across his face. Strange, thought Combeferre. Joly's face had a certain odd certainty to it - a sort of deliberate, quiet stubbornness that he had never noticed before. Or perhaps he had and had always thought it to be a trick of the light.

Sometimes life itself was nothing more than the reflections of souls across the stained glass faces of mankind.

Quietly and carefully, he slipped from the room and back to where the rest of the merry little band was gathered. Bahorel looked mildly curious and vaguely concerned, while Lesgle looked ready to become murderous - adding a sudden veracity to Joly's insistence that he was responsible for the steadily darkening bruise across Bahorel's jaw. Feuilly merely looked contemplative, and Combeferre made a mental note to congratulate him at a later date on being open-minded enough to work it out on his own.

"I see," he said finally, knowing full well that the expectant silence was one that was simply waiting for him to speak.

"My ribs are fine," Grantaire said in a shadow of his usual jesting tone, eyes worried and face pale nonetheless. "Please don't touch them."

My dear Scaramouche... I think I can see you now. Yes, there you are amongst the ruins of a drunkard and the relics of an intelligent man. Hiding, perhaps... only to spring out fully formed and ready to help us at our time of need. "I still need to bind them up, Grantaire," he said gently, frowning a little but smiling to show that he didn't mean to be truly stern. Perceval Grantaire had the look of a man who would rather anything in the world than be made a fuss over and thanked and praised, so Combeferre took a breath and did right by the hero of the hour... finally...and continued speaking in a light - doesn't really matter - sort of tone that always drove Enjolras quite mad. "Or Scaramouche, or whatever lapel you're going by lately."

Grantaire didn't say anything in reply, looking somewhat sheepish and worried and rather small on the sofa with his shirt mostly off and his chest covered in terrible bruises. Bahorel, however, gave a small laugh of relief, and Lesgle looked like he might have thought about smiling if he wasn't so busy looking worried.

"How's Joly?" he asked unsurprisingly.

"I gave him something to help him sleep and some water. He's resting." Eugene took a roll of bandages out of his bag and raised both eyebrows at Lesgle, quite prepared to be interrogated, seeing how very loudly he had exited the room earlier. Interrogated... he cast a glance over Grantaire and winced. Perhaps not the best choice of words. Heavens, man, how did you do it?

Lesgle rubbed a broad palm over his head, frowning in worry that... while not ill-placed with Joly... would surely have been better directed at Grantaire. Still. The Gemini were the Gemini and would always be inseparable. To break them apart would be to endanger the very foundations of the world. "Is he going to be all right? You didn't upset him, did you?"

Oh damn. "Well..." and what am I meant to say to that? Yes, I called him a liar to his face?

Feuilly and Bahorel exchanged a look and Combeferre could feel them taking mental steps backwards away from the slowly reddening Lesgle. "Well?"

It was a growl that Eugene had never heard from the friendly bald-pated homme before, and suddenly it was perfectly easy to see him punching Bahorel. In fact right now it was rather easy to see how he could take a step forwards quite simple and punch him. "...I concede I might have been a little..." he groped for a euphemism and found three readily and helpfully supplied.

"Disbelieving?" Feuilly offered.

Bahorel grinned. "Arrogant?"

"Patronising?" there was a bitter sort of tone to Lesgle's voice, which Combeferre wasn't sure he wanted to know the story behind.

Hmm. In all honesty... he sighed and nodded a little. "No doubt, all three. I apologised, however, and he appears to have forgiven me." Rather too easily, if one thinks about it. Which I am currently attempting not to do.

"Very glad to hear it," Lesgle said in a growl. And whatever else he might have added was lost when Grantaire gave a soft, tired, completely drained moan and passed out on the sofa.

Oh dieu, thank you. Combeferre briskly set about rubbing arnika into the bruises gently and binding up Grantaire's ribs with bandages, only completely and utterly grateful to Dieu and heaven and all the angels that Grantaire... Scaramouche... whoever this man was, was unconscious and unable to feel anything that was being done to him. If I have to listen to one more... whimpered... pleading... dieu... it'd break me.

He instructed everyone that Grantaire was not to be moved for at least a week, told Lesgle to let Joly sleep off the laudenum, nodded to Feuilly and Bahorel, and finally left, feeling humbled and contrite, saddened and yet somehow inspired. What can a man think when he discovers his own friends and companions are something so much greater... so completely above anything he could ever aspire to... giants in the garden of Eden, perhaps. Waving their flaming swords. It was suddenly a lot less difficult to imagine Joly with a flaming sword, and he pondered on this all the way home.


	17. The Hatred of Men That Devours

**A/N - Am going to try to finish this arc on schedule, mes amis. And then we may have a short hiatus for a couple of weeks before starting the next one to allow us to catch up. :)**

Notes, notes, notes, notes. _Far_ too many for Augustin Enjolras' tastes. Combeferre was convinced that education was the key to progress and civilization, which would in turn bring about true revolution, but Enjolras had never been fond of settling for slow and steady when faster and fierier results were to be had. He found his mind and pen wandering slowly but surely from the detailed overview of the rights of succession to the Spanish throne to the speech about Charles de Bourbon's latest outrage in Algeria. After all, which one was really more important at this moment?

And yet there is one thing more important. Kings rise and fall, tyrants and reformers alike come and go, we small ants crawl back and forth across the earth – but La Douce France, she remains forever as long as her people shall remember what land it was that gave them birth – the Republic that was their mother. A Republic which ought not give her children reason to curse her, which ought to provide them with their liberty and nurture them under her wing, whose fiery passion ought inspire them to defend her with the same burning flames in their hearts that they ought learn at her very knee – _Brothers_ – – – !

This careless mark across his paper was produced by his suddenly hearing a tense knock at the door. Rising, he realized only dimly as he went that the hour was abnormally late even for students to be about. Had the tide of Liberty come in at last?

Ah, perhaps it had. "Combeferre," he greeted the tired-looking man at his door.

"Bonsoir, Enjolras," Combeferre nodded. "Mind if I come in?"

"Oh, no, of course not." He let Combeferre in, and noticed at once that his lieutenant was carrying his doctor's kit. "…you've been out. What is it?"

"We found Grantaire," Combeferre said.

Enjolras paused slightly. "_Oh_." Was he expected to react to this?

Combeferre found a seat and sighed deeply. "He's alive…but badly hurt."

"…what happened?" Enjolras made himself ask, more to make Combeferre feel that he was taking this seriously than because he actually _was_.

"...seems he got into a fight with three men. They broke all his ribs." Combeferre pushed his wavering spectacles back up his nose and rubbed his temples wearily. "_All_ his ribs, Enjolras."

"Oh," Enjolras said again, finding a seat beside him. He decided, again for Combeferre's sake, to assume that this was a very bad thing to have happen to oneself.

"It was quite horrible." Indeed, his companion was unusually pale and looked rather shaken – something Enjolras had not thought possible. _Very_ bad, then.

"I can imagine," he said carefully, placing a hand lightly on Combeferre's shoulder.

"I kept _hurting_ him," Combeferre said, obviously distressed. It was very rarely that Enjolras saw his second so upset over anything, and yet more rarely that either of them made such confessions to the other. Enjolras suddenly felt hugely inadequate, as he always did when anything more than cool detachment was required.

Swallowing his awkwardness, he responded as a leader ought to. "Knowing you it had to have been necessary, Combeferre."

"Oh it was," Combeferre said, still upset. "But he was delirious and didn't... he kept asking me to stop."

"Ah…" Enjolras said quietly, hoping that it would prove calming.

Combeferre pulled himself together then, for which Enjolras was grateful, and sighed to himself. "…I thought you might have wanted to know." His tone said in no uncertain terms that Enjolras had _better_ have been concerned about the misguided cynic's fate.

"Of course," he lied, an abomination to him, but necessary to keep so vital a peace. "By the way, where is he?"

"Joly and L'aigle's. Feuilly found him in the street and took him there."

Enjolras nodded thoughtfully. "Thank you."

"...you're welcome," Combeferre said, finally smiling in approval. "I should... get home. I have a paper to finish."

"You should…" Enjolras started to agree before suddenly remembering the paper Combeferre had handed to him with instructions to hand in. Oh _dieu_ – had he forgotten? He was ready to be done with this class…by the look on Combeferre's face, he knew exactly what Enjolras had just remembered, and was just as concerned. "…yes, I remember now," he said finally, much to his second's relief. The professor had started to make a sarcastic comment about his chronic absence, cut off by the fittingly cold stare he had received. Combeferre might lecture all he wanted, but in Enjolras' book, there were still more important things than going to class. Like Liberte. Fraternite. Egalite. La Republique…

"…_good_," Combeferre said, interrupting his thoughts once more. "…well…I'll see you tomorrow?"

"I certainly hope so."

When Combeferre was gone, Enjolras found that he still could not concentrate on his notes, and that he also could not concentrate on his newest speech. It seemed that, as Combeferre had warned, Grantaire had finally _listened_ to something he was told to do. Miraculous, non? Enjolras had to see this for himself, and perhaps see if this new development might not be permanent.

Lesgle answered the door at Joly's; Enjolras could hear his voice behind the door even before he opened it, muttering something about their place not being a public roadway.

"Oh…uh…Enjolras?" he stammered once he saw who was standing there.

"Combeferre told me that Grantaire was here," Enjolras said simply.

"…uh…yeah. Yeah, he is. He's….not very well at the moment," Lesgle said uncomfortably.

"Oh, I won't be a bother. I just wanted to..." Enjolras could not quite bring himself to say "speak with him". "I won't be a bother."

"…oh, no bother," Lesgle said. "Come in."

Oddly, Joly was missing from the tableau before him. Grantaire was there, laid out across the sofa, with Bahorel draped over one of the arms and Feuilly standing up against a wall. Before Enjolras could make his presence known himself, Bahorel happened to look up and gave Feuilly a sharp nudge with his elbow. Grantaire, noticing their lack of attention, looked up as well and let himself slide to a halt in the middle of his ramblings.

Enjolras cleared his throat mildly. "Grantaire."

"Uh…" Grantaire looked pale and wide-eyed. "Hello, Enjolras."

"I see you're quite alive." This, delivered in the most level, civil tone he could muster to deal with the man, aided by the thought that such measures might actually yield results. The stunned looks he was receiving seemed to indicate that his efforts were showing.

"…yes. So it seems." Grantaire grinned a little, irritating even as an invalid. "Not for want of trying, though."

Enjolras felt his temper take the better of him upon seeing that grin. "In that case I congratulate you on finally listening to something I've told you to do."

"…I try…" Grantaire said weakly.

"If you tried a little more in future," Enjolras went on a little more civilly (well, maybe 'coldly' was more honest), trying to get over his very unleaderlike irritation and return to the spirit of Converting Grantaire, "you might actually make yourself really useful."

Grantaire cleared his throat awkwardly before saying in a very thick voice, "You think I should keep trying, then."

_Yes_- was it _possible_ that he was finally _truly_ being understood? Yes, Grantaire, by all means, keep trying to listen to my words. Perhaps you will understand them. Take them to heart. Perhaps the destruction of my cynicism toward you will destroy yours toward me. But all that Enjolras said aloud was simply, "Yes, I do."

Grantaire closed his eyes very tightly – Augustin presumed, against the light. "...right. Um... what should I... be... doing...?" he said thinly.

"What have I _always_ told you to do?" Enjolras said, tensing - perhaps, then, Grantaire had _not _understood everything he told him. Perhaps it would be best to explain again. "Either sober up and make yourself useful to the Cause or take your drunken, useless, distracting cynical self elsewhere."

"I…did _try_…" Grantaire said, adding a weak laugh that immediately worked its way under Enjolras' skin.

"And I hope that you will continue trying," he snapped. "There was a time I _thought_ you could be made to see the light. I am inclined to think you have been permanently blinded by your dissipated ways, but I challenge you, Winecask, to prove me wrong."

"…I wish I could," Grantaire said, rather helplessly.

"I see."

"I'd die for you, Enjolras."

_And yet you can't even bring yourself to believe in what I stand for!_ "I'd noticed." This, coldly.

"I'm sorry," Grantaire said.

"What, that it didn't work?" Enjolras said even more coldly. Grantaire was never sorry for anything, and though Enjolras had thought his ways were changing, he still had that irritating flippancy, only now it was mixed with self-pity. In any other man Enjolras might forgive that fault, but in himself –

No – in _Grantaire_, he meant.

In Grantaire.

_Grantaire_. Sodden, dissipated, laughing, sarcastic, cynical, stupid, flippant Grantaire.

He almost missed the Winecask's response. "…failed again…" was all that he caught, trailing off at the end.

"I _hope_ to see you make something of yourself, if you can. I can't say I expect it. But I do hope," Enjolras forced himself to say. "Well, I've said my piece," he continued, trying to compose himself, to be civil, and to not look at Grantaire. "Hope I haven't kept any of you up too late. I'll just see you all…later."

Lesgle showed him out quickly and Enjolras found himself to be _himself_ once more, now that he was out of sight of the man on the couch, whose laughter seemed to ever fly back in his face. _Fantastic, Enjolras. As if that'll do much good, Enjolras. Who cares for Liberty anyway, Enjolras?_

If there is a god, Grantaire, I hope that he damns you for your cowardice.


	18. A Heart Coroded

**A/N - Here we are! The end of Arc Three! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as we enjoyed writing it. As Arc Four is about a third written, we will be taking a short hiatus about about two or three weeks to allow us time to catch up so we don't run out of updates halfway through or anything like that. Love you all, mes amis!**

What? He closed the door behind the archangel with his fiery sword - and _thank_ you, Mere, for insisting I go to church every Sunday and listen to Pere Michel spout from the book of Revelation for my entire childhood. When people ask why I can only picture angels as those with the really scary faces who have big flaming scythes and go about reaping the souls of the wicked, that's the answer I give them. Pere Michel and his pulpit and his scary little glasses winking at me every Sunday. Until now he had never seen clearly the resemblance in Enjolras - but today he saw it. The mercilessness of the slaughter of lost souls.

What? How? Daniel shook his head. _Really_, how _could_ anyone be like that to a wounded man? He walked slowly back to the living room and there was poor Perceval, shaking a little on the couch... face as white as the very very white china we keep for when Joly's mother visits because it shows the spots and somehow that's a good thing even though she always makes us wash them twice. "_Dieu_."

Dominic was glaring after the archangel with a heretically furious look on his face, and Alexandre looked stern and thoughtful. Amis, why are we always fighting each other when we're meant to be joining against the tyrants?

Just curious, really. It's no doubt a very silly thing not to know and all that and I know I'm hardly the brains of the group or anything like that, but I just thought I'd ask if you understand what I mean by that and all.

"You know," Alexandre was saying in his flat, I've-thought-this-out-and-you're-not-changing-my-mind voice. "I really think I just lost a good piece of my respect for that man."

Angel, ami. Archangel. "Yeah... quite a big chunk." You see, I don't think archangels are meant to lead people to revolution. It doesn't sound like a very Smiting and Holy thing to do winced a little as Grantaire made a noise like a strangled groan. Perceval, for all his cynicism and his insistance on the lack of beautiful true things in life had somehow poured all that was left in his cracked cynical heart into adoring Enjolras. Like maybe sometimes the really really small plants that don't have enough room to grow and have a lot of rocks all around them just sort of push their leaves up towards the sun, around corners and through cracks and anything they have to just to beg a little light.

All Perceval ever wanted was a little light. He pretended he didn't, but the pretense was wearing thin now.

"A _huge_ one," Dominic was slamming one fist into his palm. "R, don't listen to a word he says."

Which was like telling a stream not to flow or a tide not to follow the moon's commands, ami. Dieu, telling Grantaire not to listen to Enjolras is like telling him to stop breathing, can't you see that? In response, all Grantaire did was make another noise - this one sounding dangerously like a sob, and Daniel mouthed 'is he all right?' in a rhetorical sort of way at the others. I mean of _course_ I know he isn't, but... but what do you _do_ with a cynic with broken ribs who's crying because an archangel sliced up his soul with a fiery sword? I don't think I can _fix_ that, amis. I'm no good at words, really...

Bahorel gave him a '_what do you think?_' look and shook his head, while Feuilly just stood there leaned up against the wall and looking worried.

Oh brilliant. It's my job, is it? Just lovely, thank you amis. If I break him more, it's your fault and you _know_ how unlucky I am. "Hey... Grantaire..." he stepped closer to the couch and tried to smile. "Really, you shouldn't worry about what he says." Well you shouldn't. Remind me to give you that talk about how to be a proper cynic sometime. You need reminding. Why not start listening to people who actually sort of like you? I sort of like you - just stop getting my Joli in danger and you'll be a really nice homme. A really nice kind of tortured homme who might have gotten his ribs broken so we'd not get found out... oh. Yes.

"...sorry," Grantaire's face was crumpled up like he was trying really really hard not to let himself cry. "I'll be... all right. Sorry."

I'm not any _good_ at fixing people, amis. Not people who aren't my Joli. Dieu, why is he sorry? Daniel rubbed his hands together and cast a helplessly powerless look at Alexandre - who seemed to be holdng some sort of internal debate with himself and made no response - and Dominic, who - let's face it, amis, is really worse than I am at this. If he can't break something to fix it then it will stay broken.

Bahorel, in fact, looked positively sick. His jaw was working, the muscles bunching away like he was trying to out-chew a cow, and when he noticed the tears streaking down Perceval's cheeks, he went a bright red - Daniel had never ever seen anyone flush that quickly before - and bunched up his fists and... no... _Dominic_, ami... _really_, that's not the best... no...

"Just... _damn_ it!" Dominic Bahorel slammed one meaty fist into the wall. Two of Maurice's favorite pictures lept from their hooks and the medical journals on the book shelf began plunging towards the floor. Bang... bang... crash... oh dear, and it's not even my fault this time, Maurice - really it's not... "Dom... much as I appreciate the _sentiment_... _please_..."

Please what? Please recall that _my_ Joli is in _that_ room trying to get some well-earned rest after taking on the government with only coffee to sustain him. Please recall that I really don't want you to wake him up. At all.

"Oh... sorry..." Dominic looked sorry. He looked a little wilted, in fact, losing his high colour and unclenching his fists. Which was a good thing, because Grantaire - _Perceval_ - seemed so overwhelmed by the sudden loud noises that he went from quietly failing not to cry to a painfully heart-rending hysterical quiet sobbing. Just sobbing and sobbing and sobbing with one bruised and beaten hand over his bruised and beaten face. Every now and again gasping for breath in a pained sharp way which said 'Bonjour! I'm Grantaire's Ribs and I wanted To Remind You We're All Broken!'

A door opened and banged shut, and Maurice appeared - oh _cher_, I'm so sorry, I did try to keep them quiet but Grantaire broke and I honestly didn't break him and I can't control Dominic not even if I try, cher. He looked tousled and drowsy and bad-tempered for being dragged up, and scowled around everyone. "Someone had _better_ be dying in here or something."

The word 'dying' had barely left his lips when Grantaire sort of choked and sobbed even louder, curling up into an awkward, hampered sort of ball and doing his best to roll onto his side.

Oh dieu dammit, archangel... Daniel shook his head. Thank the bon dieu Maurice was here - even if he hasn't had enough time to sleep. There's no one else here with any kind of sense to talk to Perceval when he's like this. "Maurice... cher..."

His Joli's gaze swung almost drunkenly around the room, skimming over the sofa three times before he finally focused on it and appeared to come a little more alive. "...what the... never mind... what the hell happened while I was out?"

"Enjolras." Daniel had a feeling this would express everything else that had happened perfectly.

It did. Maurice blinked twice and then said very very quiet. "...please say you're kidding. Please."

"Wish I was," and he did _really_. It would be a very bad joke, even worse than his joke about Grapefruit and Marie Antoinette and the nuns, but he wished more than anything that this could be a joke instead of awful awful reality. "He managed to pretty much eviscerate R in all of ten minutes."

"Oh, dieu." Maurice walked across the room and sat down on the couch next the to poor poor hurt, tortured, tired, over-strained Perceval, who flinched and shuddered and tried to shrink further away from Maurice as though maybe Joli was going to hurt him. _Joli_.

"I'm not going to bite you." Maurice looked a little miffed and also a little sympathetic. He was energetically picking bits of fluff off the arm of the couch, tiny little bits of fluff, and every now and again he would give Grantaire a quick look and his face would contract a little like he was Very Displeased about what he was seeing.

Perceval didn't respond for a long moment, and then he said in a thick, strange voice that Daniel could barely recognise as the same voice as M. Scaramouche, M. Cynic, M. Wit and Wisdom, he said simply, "I want to die."

Oh dieu. Enjolras - _dieu_. Not _again_.

"No you don't," Maurice said immediately. "You want to live."

"Why?" Perceval was shaking again, probably a hair away from another breakdown, and _cher_, what are we going to do if he tries to... _you know_... I mean _really, _I should _know_, there are plenty of ways to hurt yourself in this room and I don't want him to do that after we've gone to all that trouble to save him...

Maurice frowned, looked around the room, picked at the sofa arm, and frowned again. "Because... because, dammit, there is more to life than trying to make people happy that are never going to be happy. Like justice. And friendship. And headache powders." He rubbed his temples briskly, and Daniel made a mental promise to get him something for his head right the very minute he'd convinced Grantaire not to kill himself. Right that very _second_, cher.

"But I don't _have_ any friends."

It was said so miserably, so bereft and suddenly lonely - without the bravado of the masks Scaramouche and Grantaire wore all the time, the grin that was ever present on the ugly face, the half-empty wineglass, the biting wit and the 'Hey _Bahorel_...' or 'Bon soir, _Feuilly_...' that rambled out along with insane references to bizarre classical mythology that Daniel _really_ had not even the _slightest_ intention of keeping up with - that it took Daniel several beats to realise exactly what Grantaire _had_ said.

He didn't _have_ any friends? Not Dominic and Lucien, his closest amis... though... yeah, Daniel could somehow see how Grantaire might doubt that a little, maybe... but _dieu_, to say it in front of Dominic, who had come out all this way and run off to get Combeferre for him...

And, pardonnez-moi, Perceval. _Excuse_ the impudence and the presumption and everything else, but don't _we_ qualify to be your friends after breaking you _out_ of prison?

Dominic gave a loud, hurt sounding cough from the corner, and Daniel followed it up with his own, rather too explosive, "_Hey_!" I don't just break _anyone_ out of prison, you know! Alexandre looked surprised. Not insulted, not hurt, but surprised. Yes, Grantaire - you surprise us. We're not good enough, is that it? _Really_, after you come into _our_ house and rearrange the books on _our_ shelves...

"What?" Maurice summed it up with impressive coolness of temper. "Do we not exist?"

There was a crackling sort of pause, like the feeling in the air just before a thunder storm when you know you're going to be caught out in the rain without a coat or hat. Grantaire shifted a little, making small pained noises as he rolled back over to stare up at Maurice. His face was worse... dear dieu - Daniel had not considered that possible before, but it appeared that it was. Swollen and tearful and utterly miserable, and despite being Not At All Pleased That They Did Not Count As Friends, Daniel couldn't help a pang.

"..._you_..." Grantaire said finally, looking at Maurice as though he'd donned a funny looking turban and promised three wishes, "want... to be _my_ friends."

Maurice again didn't seem at all surprised by the question, and merely picked a bit of fluff off his shoulder. "Well, _yes_. We're all in this together, aren't we?"

For the second time, Grantaire opened his mouth and said something astonishing. "...I didn't want to _presume_." And suddenly it all made sense. 'Oh don't pay any attention, that's just Grantaire... he's harmless...' the Amis sometimes said to visiting students of the republic. 'Winecask' and 'GrandR' and 'Dieu, _shut up_,' and that was it. Grantaire just didn't think they _wanted_ to be friends with him. Not even Dominic - which considering his reaction to the revelation of Scaramouche, was perhaps not overly surprising.

Daniel tried to imagine what it would be like to be utterly friendless. To have to just go one as though that didn't matter and you didn't care. He couldn't.

"That's fine," Alexandre said quietly. "But really..." and he stopped all of a sudden, but left it quite obvious what he was going to say. I would be your friend. Daniel nodded a little at him, understanding and approving. Yes, Perceval. We'd all be your friends.

The Man Who Was Obviously Not At All A Very Good Cynic Really coughed and groaned and tried to resettle himself against the cushions, face all creased up with the pain, but looking - yes - looking decidedly less like he was going to go swimming in the Seinne any time soon. "I'm sorry," he said finally, meekly almost.

"It's all right." Maurice nodded and petted his shoulder and looked as though he were hoping his own head would explode because then it just might feel better.

"I..." Perceval stopped shifting around and blinked out at them all. "While you're all here, I want to say something."

Daniel blinked and nodded, getting the feeling that this was a 'you people who break people out of prison like I do' more than a 'you people in the room'. He crossed over to sit on the floor near Maurice, so he could hear better and be ready to fetch headache powders when needed.

"Yes?" Alexandre looked like he also thought it was that sort of 'you', and come to think of it - Dominic was looking more than a little left out, so Perceval must have been pretty obvious.

Perceval had obviously realised his strength was no longer in cynicism, for he appeared to now be concentrating on the talent of saying surprising things. For the third time in the one evening, Daniel found himself wondering if his ears were in correct working order. "...if they capture me again," Scaramouche said very very quietly and very seriously. "I don't want you to rescue me."

Silence reigned. Four pairs of eyes stared down at the wounded Scaramouche, and finally Pan blinked very fast and said, "_What?_" in a way that perfectly summed up what Daniel was feeling.

"Look..." Perceval winced and little and shifted a fraction on his pillows, a bit flushed as though he could halfway guess what they were thinking and it embarrassed him. Well too bad, ami, next time don't tell us all you want to die. "They see me - for some reason - as the leader of this little group. Until today they didn't know that anyone else would have the crazy courage to break someone out of prison... I'm not looking to get caught again, but I've a price on my head. If they get me, they'll make me a trap for the rest of you and I will _not_ have you getting hurt." He took a breath at the end, his face crumpled, and he groaned.

It was possibly the silliest, bravest, craziest, most noble and yet at the same time annoyingly self-sacrificial thing Daniel had ever heard. He looked at Maurice, who was looking similarly mooved and annoyed and like he had a bad headache.

"Say we cross that bridge when we come to it?" Joli said practically.

Perceval looked just as tired and in far more pain. "I can live with that." Thank you, ami, for that little word 'live'. It's a great relief.

"Good..." Maurice sighed. "Daniel? Alexandre? In agreement?"

They both nodded along, and Perceval coughed and winced. "And so it was agreed. Maurice, ami... _you_ need to go back to _bed_."

THere were several remarkable things about that sentance. Grantaire had said the word 'ami' - he looked half as though he expected to get scolded for it, but he'd _said_ it. And he'd used Maurice's first name, something Daniel was almost certain he'd never done before. And he was actually concerned about _Maurice_ going to bed - which of course he should, but Grantaire was in so much pain...

"I will do so gratefully," Maurice said, as though nothing at all untoward had just happened. "But I am going to go and find the headache powders first." He got up at that, and headed towards the kitchen - and _dieu_, it was late.

It's late, mon ami. How about you go back to the home I'm sure you have and let us tired tired prison-breakers sleep for the night? "Look... both Maurice and Perceval need some rest. Perhaps you should come back later, Alexandre." Oh...dieu - Dominic was still here. "And we'll see you at the next meeting, Dom." It was a weak afterthought, and Daniel got the uncomfortable feeling that Bahorel had been somewhat excluded from the latter part of the conversation.

"...all right," Dominic said, not looking too pleased.

Alexandre nodded. "It really is late."

It is! Thank you for agreeing with me there, ami. "Dieu is it ever. And it's been a long day."

"Very long. See you all around." Alexandre put his hat on snugly in a manner Maurice would certainly have approved of for keeping out the vapours, and left.

"Dieu... I could sleep for a week," Perceval said with a groan, and Dominic raised an eyebrow at him.

"Maybe you should. Could do you some good, hm? See you at... the next meeting." The last was a little flat, and he left without saying goodbye, and Daniel had a slightly knotty feeling in his stomach that maybe that wasn't a very good thing.

Perceval, however, didn't seem to hav enoticed at all. "Thanks for the sofa, Daniel."

"That's quite all right," oh dieu, you're using my name too? I feel special, ami. I really do. Whyever _are_ you like this, Perceval? Why _wouldn't_ I want to be friends apart from your habit of getting my Joli in danger which I'm trying to learn to live with but I'm not very good at... "You get some rest. I'm going to go check on Maurice." Perceval nodded, and Daniel slipped into the kitchen only to find that whatever Combeferre had given Maurice had caught up with him again. He was asleep at the kitchen table, packet for the headache powders in one hand, and undrunk misture near the other.

With a smile, Daniel picked him up gently and carried him to his bed, tucking him in and ruffling his hair before slipping off to his own room. Dieu... be praised this all ended well. Even giants wouldn't have tried what we tried... and we're such little folk really on the scale of things. But Joli did it, and Alexandre helped - and I didn't break anything and Perceval's safe.

Good night, amis.


End file.
